Corruption: The Long Shadow
Stand-up comedian Learnmore Jonasi has a set where talks about corruption… it’s satirical but with a bitter truth.
In developed countries, when corruption is mentioned in the media, in movies, the news, it involves large sums of money mostly done by high ranking officials, cartels and trust-fund babies with generational wealth and a couple of celebrities not filing their tax returns on their royalties…
My lived reality doesnt view corruption as some distant concept but a senior government official getting a kickback to award a tender to the same “tenderpreneur” over and over again under different company names registered as briefcase companies with offshore accounts. Prices are inflated beyond recognition, the work is subcontracted to someone else for a fraction of the amount, and the finished project is held together by patriotism, cut-corners and substandard materials.
A red carpet is rolled out, the president cuts a ribbon and its officially approved and endorsed… who are you to ask for an audit and fee breakdown on exactly how the money was spent…
This is all hypothetically speaking of course and any similarities to things that have actually happened purely coincidental.
It’s no secret that the largest employer is the government, and now if the same government is bleeding out excess finances through hyper-inflated contracts and bloated expenditure. Is it therefore surprising when it struggles to pay civil servants the bare minimum, who likely have to dabble in, lets call it a side hustle to close the gap. To cover the shortfall created by all this, the state taxes everyone harder and we pay twice once for the loss, once for the coverup.
Then you find teachers deliver minimal effort in class while pushing for kids to have “extra-lessons”. Of course, the government has banned the practice of giving teachers incentives or paying for extra-curricular classes but if you are a parent or guardian and you see your child struggling behind, what can you do but pay up. Students who pay for extra-lessons get to seat in the front of the class and the teacher gives them more attention, and exam coaching. They gotta protect their investment after all, make sure marks look good to justify payment.
And what do the kids learn? From an early age they already know that if you want things to move, someone has to be “motivated.”
It’s an unwritten rule known by anyone who has business with civil servants or at government offices and institutions, the choregraphy is long queues, the office to office shuffle and then being told you need a signature from someone whose office opens once a week… but you offer someone drink money, which can be anything from a couple of dollars to quite the pretty penny, then the process is expediated, you might not even have to leave your house.
Lets say you try to start your own business, legitimately, the paperwork, red tape and bureaucracy measures are like a punishment that its easier to fluff compliance measures and hopefully stay under the radar, till someone comes knocking.. Then the handbook for dealing with the police and authorities comes into play.
“Manga mati toita sei?“
Meaning what do you suggest we do?
It’s a question, a suggestion and an invitation to begin an off-the-record negotiation. Language has a funny way of making corruption sound polite.
Its easy to take corruption as an abstract concept, happening way out there, that we overlook all the small ways we have normalised it. You call your friend to ask if they have a connection who can help you import goods duty-free, as a repatriated resident, when you never left the country, when you need to secure a school place for a child whose report card isn’t too good… How you cant easily get a driver’s license without first seeing Mr Moyo for “assistance”.
Many of the service delivery challenges we complain about, inconsistent water, erratic electricity supply, broken roads, under-equipped hospitals and underfunded schools can often be traced back to money that vanished somewhere between the national budget and the finished project. Taxpayers fund public services, but too often the money funds somebody else’s lifestyle instead and the cars they drive.
There’s an interesting observation about how people who leave the country tend to become less religious…. I have seen it pointed out that most of our prayer points are actually service delivery issues and if we are to pray for anything, perhaps we must pray for corruption to end.
WinterABC26 The Long Shadow Of Corruption
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