Global corruption barometers use perceptions which differ from country to country.
Perceptions without an agreed definition of the subject matter affects the quality of the reports.
There has been a disparity between corruption perception and actual experience.
In that case, whose perceptions and what are perceptions of “one’s notion of corruption” is acceptable globally remains the challenge.
The other challenge relates to data collection instruments and the mechanisms used to collect the data.
Data is collected from various respondents and the quality of the response depends on the level of understanding of the respondent to the subject matter.
In this case, what the respondents know by “amount” of corruption matters since it shapes the general perception.
On the other side, how the questions are asked and how responses are crafted affect the tautological relationship between dependent and independent variables.
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Global corruption parameters focus on positions in the league table, a comparison of ranking without much regard on other variables.
Although the results of an individual match are very important, team performance as illustrated by match statistics are pertinent.
A post-match conversation of the Dynamos-Highlanders match indicated that Highlanders dominated Dynamos during the field of play in almost all matches, but the results favoured Dynamos in most instances.
League tables are only efficient where rules are the same as with sports because punishment is predictable.
This, thereby, eliminates the cultural dimensions, variations that affect the definition, cause, extent and outcome — the elements of corruption.
Unintended consequences of focus on ranking based on measurement brings about conditionality, the need and driver for development partners’ priorities for reforms to combat corruption that leads into “corruption trap”.
On this background, global integrity has abandoned country rankings on the basis that indices do not change the status quo, the indices are too blunt and generalised to be actionable and inform real debate and policy choices.
Development agencies have adopted a stance that there is little value in a measurement if it does not inform what needs to be fixed.
Like in our earlier example, it is difficult to measure if the coach’s strategy, team formation, the individual players or department, or the football administrators are to blame for poor log standing.
The other challenge is that where there are no changes to the index, it could be that the index is failing to indicate the major truth about certain things or it is an indication of the failure of the approach to manage corruption. Second, the sample size is questionable.
The TI (Transparency International) Barometer surveys the experience of everyday people confronting corruption across the world.
A dozen of institutions from media, police, political parties and judiciary system are interviewed.
A standard sample of 1 000 people is chosen from the 107 participating countries regardless of the different population size resulting in bias.
The other defect of the corruption barometer has been its inconsistency.
Corruption’s effects on different sectors have different effects on the society in general.
There is no scale in relation to each country on what is more important or destructive to allocate it appropriate weight.
Corruption in the judiciary, procurement, police, birth registrations, consumer electricity connections, getting preferential treatment at a hospital have different weight (petty and major corruption) on the effects to society that are not effectively captured.
The other challenge is that not everyone interviewed has experience with all the dozen sectors reviewed and their knowledge on what constitute corruption differ.
Understanding how corruption networks operate is critical in order to decide on adopting positivism by instilling integrity in a system or negativism by investing in anti-corruption measures.
An effect approach is to review corruption sector by sector rather than taking a global view that dilutes and elaborates some elements.
Nyasha Chizu is a Fellow of the CIPS writing in his personal capacity. Feedback: [email protected]; Skype: nyasha.chizu
