Abstract

Corruption is an economic and social cancer afflicting industry and society at large the world over and is a major drawback to economic and social prosperity. It is the contention of this paper that corruption is a devastating form of social and economic injustice that has devastated the prospects for the dark continent of Africa. The root cause of corruption is the greediness of the leadership. Unfortunately corruption breeds corruption across the social divide as the leadership seeks to consolidate and protect themselves in the various facets of the economy, business and society. The solution to the corruption menace lies in changing the leadership which is entrenched in power and would be unwilling to vacate the powerful influential positions. Economic prosperity is largely driven by government policy that creates a conducive business environment, technology transfer, marketing activities which shape needs and demand patterns for economies. Corruption tends to distort marketing process and thereby hinder economic prosperity. The free play of market forces is hampered, economic aid from the donor community becomes almost impossible to attract and international investors shun the corrupt environments to the detriment of the economies and communities of the respective countries. There are various tools that can be used to combat the corruption menace, but without the will power on the part of the leadership the process becomes a futile exercise. This paper recommends a fresh start for Africa but the problem is that the perpetrators of the corrupt practices are the people in positions of influence and are not least interested in seeing a genuine fight against corruption. It is not impossible though as countries like Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, Egypt have demonstrated that it is not impossible to tackle corruption.

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