Corruption and development administration in Africa : Institutional approach

At the post 1990s, African countries undertook some democratic reforms following the end of one party authoritarian regimes and return to multiparty elections, which resulted in a more competitive political system. However, the central clog to economic transformation namely, public corruption remains germane. The paper explores some of the theoretical issues raised by the dynamics of socio-political change in Africa within the context of corruption and public administration including the internal and external dimensions of the unfolding corruption. It recognized that corruption in Africa is a development issue and therefore defines corruption as activities that undermine development and argued that corruption, which is largely conceived as diversion of public resource for private gains, significantly constricts development administration. This in turn impedes transition to developmental state. Corruption thus remains a theme that requires adequate attention in Africa’s development discourse. Using the institutional approach and secondary data sources, it corroborates Sen’s model of “development as freedom”, and argues that development administration practice should now be guided by certain ethical guidelines defined on the basis of social justice, transparency, accountability and equality in order for African states to transform to developmental states. The paper refutes existing practices in Africa where bureaucratic corruption undermines economic growth, rather proposes institutional overhaul to usher in a developmental state.


INTRODUCTION
There has been growing analytic tension and skeptism on Africa's possible transformation to a developmental state since the end of autocratic one party state and return to multi-party politics in the 1990s.The fundamental challenge has been public corruption which is the diversion of public resource for private gains and how it has been undermining development administration.Corruption is a development issue in Africa and finds plausible extrapolation within the context of development administration.
Conceived as a colonial legacy, public corruption has eaten deep into the fabrics of public administration in Africa.Thus, bureaucratic bottleneck and red tape are enormously constricting transparency and accountability as development administration ought to have been an interventionist agency and purveyor of development.
A brief genealogical mapping of corruption in Africa suggests that in the pre -colonial era, corruption was relatively unknown to Africans where rudimentary, agrarian and barter relationship existed.There was predominantly inter -tribal wars and conquests devoid of any closer approximation to modern corruption.Corruption in Africa is traced to colonial contacts following early European traders such as the Portuguese and economic usurp, quest for in-roads to the hinterlands with "gifts" to African traditional rulers, closely followed by slave trade and conquests as the colonial state "imposed" itself on African colonies with repressive policies.
Quantifying what Africa lost to Europe through colonialism specifically on slave trade alone, Walter Rodney argued; "The process by which captives were obtained on African soil was not trade at all; it was through warfare, trickery, banditry and kidnapping.When one tries to measure the effect of European slave trading on the African continent, it is very essential to realize that one is measuring the effect of social violence rather than trade in any normal sense of the word" (Rodney, 1972: 109).
Research on corruption in Africa has been increasingly engaged with questions of colonial and post -colonial institutional structures and their functions such as bureaucracy and corruption.
In his book, The Dual Mandate of the British in Tropical Africa, Lord Lugard, one of the British colonizing officials in Africa, stated; "the partition of Africa was, as we all recognize, due primarily to the economic necessity of increasing the supplies of raw materials and food to meet the needs of the industrialized nations of Europe" (Lugard, 1965).
Ake observed remarkable difference in patterns of colonial administration and practices in Africa, stating that colonialism in Africa was markedly different from the colonial experiences of the Americas, Europe, and Asia: "it churned out administrative instruments and legislated taxes to induce the breakup of traditional social relations of production, the atomization of society, and the process of proletarianization" (Ake, 1996).
In a similar line of argument, colonial loots from the colonies have been identified as key incipient corruption drivers.On April 19, 2013, Reuters reported recent entreaty by Indian Government on British Prime Minister, Ronald Cameron for a return of Indian diamonds looted by the British Government in the colonial era, that was set in a royal crown of Queen Elizabeth."Cameron ruled out handing back the 105-carat Koh-i-Noor diamond, now on display in the Tower of London". 1 "The diamond had been set in the crown of the current Queen Elizabeth's late mother" Cameron said; "I don't think that's the right approach."He further said, "It is the same question with the Elgin Marbles," referring to the classical Greek marble sculptures that Athens has long demanded be given back."I certainly don't believe in 'returnism', as it were.I don't think that's sensible." 2 Public corruption and its associated problems in Africa were hardly recognized as the continent emerged from colonial rule to independent states.Perhaps too unfamiliar with details of modern bureaucracy or poor grasp of long term effects of public corruption made it hard for the post -colonial African elite to see the problems clearly.
Former Tanzanian Minister, A M Babu described the lifestyles of emergent post -colonial African elites this way; "as soon as independence was achieved, the flags raised and new nations born-as soon, that is ,as the leaders of the new states settled in their plush offices (just vacated, incidentally, by the colonial bosses)….they surrounded themselves with luxurious living quarters in glaring contrast to the ubiquitous shanties which pass for dwellings for those they claimed to be leading (Babu, 1981).
Since the early 1960s, researchers have devoted significant efforts to examine development administration in the developing economies (Kasfir, 1969), paying much attention to the effects of bureaucracy and the behavior of civil servants on economic growth and development (Mbaku, 1996).
Despite this emphasis on the study of development administration in post-independence Africa, there has been insufficient attention paid to corruption and development administration nexus in Africa which has remained understudied.More importantly, there seems to be a research gap on institutional overhaul and transformation of Africa's public administration in line with the developmental states.
Peter Gills writes; "it was not long when the first generation of African leaders assumed power that they started to fight about it, with many people wanting to lead and have a shot at the Presidency…Corrupt activities at that time were largely to advance and finance political parties and a struggle for political leaders to stay in power" (Gills, 1986).
But the problems lying in wait were not long in coming.The most dangerous of them is public corruption and institutional decay as corruption becomes a "way of life" in Africa.
Major challenge became poverty, inequality and lack of economic wellbeing.For instance, Luke Amadi observed that in five decades of political independence of most African countries, the first wave of post-colonial leaders decanted into one form of authoritarian rule or the other (Amadi, 2012b); such as Mobutu Seceseco of Zaire, whose corrupt and dictatorial rule held sway over Zaire for more than 30 years, allegedly made the claim that "democracy is not for Africa" (Leon, 2010), till the collapse of Zaire in 1997 after decades of corruption and misrule.
Arap Moi's twenty four years rule in Kenya was also characterized by massive corruption.Same goes for Omar Bongo of Garbon and Mathew Kerekou of Benin Republic.
Martin Meredith records the 1991 remark of the 84-year-old Felix Houphouet-Boigny, who, after 29 years of untrammeled authoritarian rule in Côte D'Ivoire, said, "There's no number two, or three or four . . . in Côte D'Ivoire. . .(T)here's only number one, that's me and I don't share my decisions" (Meredith, 2005).By the end of the 1980s, out of some 150 heads of state who had governed African countries since independence, only 6 had voluntarily relinquished power-and even in those cases, after 20 or more years in office (Meredith, 2005;Leon, 2010).
Transparency International's (TI) 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), released in October 2010, identified Africa as the most corrupt region in the world. 3 Equally, Paul Collier had demonstrated that Africa is today the poorest region of the world (Collier, 2007).Similarly, World Bank and UNDP reports corroborate this assertion (UNDP, 2012;World Bank, 2012).All these point to the interrogation of the internal dynamics of Africa's abysmal economic performance in the post 1990s.
Since the end of the cold war and democracy resurgence, major concern has been, how to make "governance work" as most of the neo liberal experiments and Western prescriptive models lack exact conceptual framework for distinguishing between what is essential and what is contingent in the development of Africa.The challenge of transforming corruption in Africa remains enormous.
There seems to be only a choice of emphasizing this problem through close explication of the forms and patterns of Africa's public administration.This stems from the fact that such post-colonial structures as modern bureaucracy could be subjected to institutional reform.
The dearth of deep analysis and viable alternative route to development spotlights the need to evaluate the internal dynamics of corruption in Africa.We have chosen to explore development administration to delineate other forms of administration in order to understand the outer limits and patterns of Africa's governance in the context of development and to clearly decipher the basis of failures of governmental institutions and apparatuses in connection with corruption.Thus, discourse on development administration and corruption in Africa provides a paraphernalia to explore these challenges especially in an era of developmental state conceived as "a state which is by definition interventionist and pro-poor, and which seeks to address challenges such as poverty, low economic growth, lack of infrastructure, and unequal development, by deliberately using state resources to address these challenges" (Mbabazi, 2005quoted in Maphunye, 2009).
Certain ideological and moral dilemmas have also been deeply felt as public administration in Africa falls short of being categorized as "developmental".The resulting variants of state accumulation have often contrived nontransparent and unaccountable governmental institutions which are weak in sustaining the major burden of checking corruption.
In some cases, the little emphasis on fiscal accountability, effective macroeconomic policy and social expenditure, negatively affect resources urgently needed to expand the productive base of the economy, poverty remains pervasive.
Corruption is classified as grand, bureaucratic and economic.Our focus is on bureaucratic corruption which falls within development administration.This would be linked to a broader elucidation of grand corruption which is corruption between top political office holders, the award of contracts (public procurement), institutions such as governmental, quasi -governmental and multinational corporations (MNCs)-resource exploitation and rents.It is different from petty corruption involving bribery, kickbacks etc within the private sector.
The scale of grand corruption has been foreshadowed by scholars of African development.Collier (2010) explored the involvement of Western multinationals in corruption in Africa especially among the natural resource rich but poor countries like Nigeria, Benin Republic, CodeD'Ivoire, Angola, South Sudan, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Sao Tomi and Principe etc.
There are important ramifications for the study of corruption and development administration including analytic, comparative, academic, policy making and more importantly development implications.

Corruption and development administration
Corruption has become synonymous to Africa .This does not debunk its prevalence in other periphery and industrialized societies.Though, its severity and long term negative effects to development seem enormous in Africa.
As a colonial legacy, Meredith posits that until independence, "the opportunities for self-enrichment were limited; the principal beneficiaries of colonial rule were the European elite, officials and businessmen, enjoying a lifestyle which the Africa elite aspired to emulate but were largely prevented from reaching" (Meredith, 2006).He further observed that; "Independence unlocked the floodgate (of corruption).Politicians used their public office to extract 'commissions' at every available opportunity.The common cut on government contracts in West Africa was 10 per cent.In numerous cases, prominent politicians simply looted the state treasury, transferring money to their private accounts" (Meredith, 2006).
At the conceptual level are debates among scholars over the very meaning of public corruption.Amadi and Alapiki (2012) identified systemic corruption as inherent feature of the changing forms of post 1990 corruption within institutions.This occurs when corruption becomes an integral part o f the social system present in the economic, social and political system.It is a situation in which the major institutions and state apparatus are routinely diverted for personal gains.Sen (1999) posits that corruption or corrupt behavior involves the violation of established rules for personal gain and profit.Corruption is effort to secure wealth or power through illegal means private gain at public expense; or a misuse of public power for private benefit (Lipset and Lenz, 2000).
Equally, Joseph Nye tried to capture these normative features as echoed in almost every argument that emphasizes the development aspects of an institution characterized by collective efforts at implementing laid down government rules.Nye argued that, corruption is a behavior which deviates from the formal duties of a public role, because of private (gains) -regarding (personal, close family, private clique, pecuniary or status gains).It is a behavior which violates rules against the exercise of certain types of (duties) for private (gains) -regarding influence (Nye, 1967).
This definition includes such behaviors as bribery (use of a reward to pervert the judgment of a person in a position of trust); nepotism (bestowal of patronage by reason of ascribed relationship rather than merit); and misappropriation (illegal appropriation of public resources for private uses) (Bandfield, 1958).
According to the World Bank, corruption is the abuse of public office for private gains.Public office is abused for private gain when an official accepts, solicits or extorts a bribe.It is also abused when private agents actively offer bribes to circumvent public policies and processes for competitive advantage and profit.Public office can also be abused for personal benefit even if no bribery occurs, through patronage and nepotism, the theft of state assets or the diversion of state revenue (World Bank, 1997).
Both Guriev (2004), Kaufman and Wei (2000) have identified how many bureaucrats deliberately increased the level of regulation complexity in order to increase their level of bribes (Khan, 2008).Ake (1991) re-echoed that; "the social impact of corruption is the creation of an atmosphere of tension, dishonesty, and weak and/or selective law enforcement, which, in turn breeds cynicism and erosion of faith in the political and administrative system.For example, the misallocation of resources rewards the indolent and those with the right connections, resulting in a disconnection between reward and effort" Drawing from works on the fight against corruption, Andres (2008) examines "Governance for the 21st Century" and provides plausible insights with emphasis on challenges posed by corruption.
Amadi and Alapiki (2012) argued on "re-inventing anticorruption strategies", through sound macroeconomic policy framework and strategic institutional overhaul.A number of corruption themes are related to links between Africa's leadership failure, electoral fraud, terrorism, local conflicts, business cycles and conduct of governance.
Related works have explored bureaucratic corruption as institutional variations across states or regions within countries, such as the work building on Mbaku (1996) who argued that in Africa bureaucrats attempt to increase their level of compensation by lobbying lawmakers and politicians and by engaging in other activities to influence the political system and maximize benefits accruing to them" A similar strand has abandoned the cross-country focus to examine more systematically variations between individuals or at least lower levels of administration, such as communities, wards, local governments or villages.The resulting literature often reflects a far richer understanding of the specific context and, as a consequence, a vast array of locally relevant topics related to corruption such as kick-backs, electoral fraud, forgery, ethnic chauvinism, bribery, organized crime, embezzlement, bureaucratic processes, legal systems, local conflicts etc.
Jacob van Klaveren believes that a corrupt bureaucrat regards his office as a business from which he is able to extract extra-legal income (Klaveren 1990, cited in Mbaku, 1996) Amadi and Alapiki (2012) opined that "corruption increasingly assumes an elitist character.This is perhaps in the context of public sector where the holders of political and economic powers divert public funds for private gains, influence the laid down policies for their own benefits and to the detriment of a wider segment of the society".
Whilst the ultimate concern is how these activities alter laid down rules, derail economic development, many of the deep issues associated with corruption in Africa have been documented.For instance, in October 2006, then president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz disclosed that Nigerian officials had stolen more than $300 billion of their nation's wealth over the last forty years (Leon, 2010).Several dynamics and modes of operation could be explicated, in recent times across Africa.
With the return to democracy in the 1990s, corruption still remains in the mainstream public administration.Even African leaders that assumed democracy "pundits' could rarely conduct free, fair and credible elections along "democratic" lines.Electoral fraud remains their substantial strategies in order to retain political power; such as Nigeria under President Obasanjo, South Africa under Jacob Zuma .Several years of misrule of President Omar Bongo of Gabon continued with the imposition of his son Ali Bongo etc.
As Andrei and Vishny (1993) observed, "corruption has the potential to undermine sustainable development in many ways.The extent to which corruption actually does so is determined by an economy's institutions and its existing capital assets.This is because they control the opportunities and incentives for politicians and bureaucrats to engage in the 'sale of public assets for private gain'.Acemoglu et al. (2001) demonstrated this with regard to political institutions while La Porta et al. (1997) with regard to legal institutions (Aidt, 2011).
We define public corruption in Africa as any activity that undermines development.This development perspective is suitable as Africa's corruption dynamics is broad and cuts across various sectors such as health, education, commerce, industry, agriculture etc which affects economic growth and development.
On its part, development administration, according to Gant (2006), came into use in the 1950s to represent those aspects of public administration and those changes in public administration, which are needed to carry out policies, projects, and programs to improve social and economic conditions.He further observed that; "This new status gave promise of freedom and liberty and selfdetermination in political systems of representative democracy.It gave hope of greater individual freedom and equality of treatment in the society" (Gant, 2006).
He equally noted that development administration is generally similar to the traditional "public administration" in its concern with how a government implements its rules, policies, and norms.It differs, however, in its objectives, scope, and complexity (Ibid).He argued that it is more innovative, since it is concerned with the societal changes involved in achieving developmental objectives (Ibid).
Etzioni (1983) posits that the inherent tensions between bureaucracy and democracy may undermine the creation of developmental public administration machinery in Africa.
According to Wallis (1989), the word 'bureaucracy' "conjures up negative images in people's minds.It suggests a slow-moving organization, usually associated with government, which serves the public with a mixture of arrogance, deliberate obstruction and incompetence … (and) 'bureaucrats' (the members of bureaucracies) are sometimes seen as figures of fun." Early studies which foreshadowed the relevance of "public administration" to economic development include Frederick Rig's seminal debate; "Public Administration: A neglected Factor in Economic Development'.Kasfir (1969) observed that, so little of value has been written about development administration in Africa that the main problem is to avoid uncritical reliance on theories formulated in other parts of the world...much of the writing about administration in Africa comes from expatriate civil servants and academic personnel involved in technical assistance to administrative training institutes…He observed that rarely do these writers compare the performance of different national or local administrative Amadi and Ekekwe 167 structures, except to apply Western techniques to African situations.Some authors have examined development administration to build a conceptualization that avoids what Mazrui (1995) refers to as "institutional failure" and the attendant burden, according to Amadi (2012b), that "development failure" seems pervasive in Africa unlike Asia and Latin America.For instance, Joel D.Bakan cautioned against the most powerful class of institutions on earth namely; the corporation, as being "hopelessly and unavoidably" demented.He argues that; "the corporation lies, steals and kills without remorse and without hesitation when it serves the interests of its shareholders to do so.…Charming and plausible though they are, they can only ever see us as resources to be used" (Bakan, 2005).
In our views, development administration combines its administrative, deliberative and bureaucratic elements.We consider an administration developmental to the extent that it facilitates bureaucratic transparency against bureaucratic bottleneck, equality, accountability, permits the broadest and simplest access to information, compliant to public policy, and constitutionally guarantees all the freedoms necessary for expression and pro poor.
Administration at all levels across Africa should be subject to analysis and assessment based on values that cannot simply be reduced to how well government policies are formulated but how such policies are implemented for the capacity of the wider society to be improved, devoid of restrictions such as bottlenecks and red tape.
This perspective is consistent with well-known conceptualizations of development administration within the tradition of viewing questions of development through an explicitly freedom lens reinforced in neo liberal tradition in development theory with Amartya Sen's book, Development as Freedom, emphasizing "enlargement of capabilities".Strengthening of individual and institutional capabilities is central to contemporary development administration.
Some conceptualizations also seek to capture the arguments advanced by proponents of 'institutional development", conceived as "an organization whose affairs are collectively coordinated with interrelated sets of units and sub units to achieve laid down goals."Rodrik et al. (2004) observed "that the effect of institutions trumps all other possible factors (e.g.geography) and that the quality of institutions has positive effects on integration.Their research has led the discussion not only because of the high quality of analytical research (regression, choice of samples) but also because of their convincing attempt to layout in which ways (direct and indirect) institutions affect income and growth".
In terms of theory, Frederick Riggs' prismatic theory has been influential in studying comparative public administration in the developing economies.For much of the post-cold war period, mainstream development administration turned away from the fundamental ideas of comparative public administration articulated by Riggs to sustainable development administration with emphasis on institutional overhaul of bureaucracies and market fundamentalism.Lucas (1988), for example, describes the obstacle to development administration as "simply accounting for the observed pattern of, across countries and time, in levels and rates of growth of per capita income..." adding that "...This may seem too narrow a definition...but thinking about income patterns will necessarily involve us in thinking about many other aspects of societies too..." Development administration in this paradigm was generally conceived as embodying historical, political, economic, social and technological contexts.
At the same time, it is a field that has rapidly evolved to engage directly with the causality question between administrative outcomes within the public realm encompassing institutional processes as political institutions and outcomes are shaped by economic conditions.
Thus, the immediate role of development administration in Africa ought to have been its exposure of the administrative obstacles to development posed by corruption and related social vices such as crime, insecurity, unaccountability, embezzlement and non-transparency.
The 'new' development administration can be seen as a direct response to this limited technocratic characterization of government: it is an attempt to re-focus attention back towards earlier considerations of how governance and the institutional structures emerging from different forms of political competition shape policy choices and ultimately economic outcomes for both human and institutional development.
Several proponents of globalization had argued that technological innovations and recent administrative modifications encompassing e-administration could improve public accountability and transparency lapses.In what might be called 'mainstream' or neo-liberal development administration, however, the emergence of an explicit 'new' development administration is more readily discernible in the evolving intellectual diagnosis of proponents of e-administration (Michel, 2005) and network states among the developmental states (Castells, 1992).
While established institutions in development administration such as bureaucracies, associated most strongly with the works of Max Weber remains weak in Africa, contemporary researchers tend to draw more directly from mainstream debates which have strongly interrogated the level of Africa's response to developmental state where arguments on Africa's prospects provided by Mkandawire (2001) seem much less sharply drawn .
The more recent travail of the failures of development administration namely; public corruption is yet to be broadly captured.Yet, it exemplifies the patterns of demands for radical institutional transformation.
The 'institutional failure' diagnosis links more generally to weak institutional capacities in systems of personal and group rule.Bates (1986), Sandbrook (1985) identified the heavy use of patronage, the discouragement of agencies of restraint, and the emasculation of competing centers of political power as 'rational' strategies of African leaders in the context of weak political legitimacy and tenuous bureaucratic control.
This paper builds on debates by scholars who argue that corruption undermines developmental state.We shall elaborate this strand in course of this study through broader elucidation of corruption dynamics in Africa.
Development administration for our purpose is conceived as interventionist, procedural, responsive and encompasses strict implementation of laid down public policies for developmental outcome.The driver of this pattern of administration is "developmental"; thus, it has a common institutional core that establishes its functions.Yet this is not an end in itself; it is plausible to accept, that "Development administration is developmental to the extent that it meets core economic and social well -being of the people without which its aim is defeated.
We contend that the dominant way of characterizing development administration according to a set of institutionalist and procedural standards must be expanded into a broader conceptualization which seeks to understand the role of institutional structures such as bureaucracies in reshaping the conduct of governance down to the wellbeing of the people.
Development administration practice, in this sense, should be conceptualized as a broad interventionist practice defined within specific macro-economic policy frameworks guided by certain ethical guidelines which should be internalized within transparent and accountable procedures to regulate policy implementation.

Corruption, resource transparency and challenges of developmental state
Sachs and Wanner (1995) had argued on the "curse of the tropics" in exploring the resource curse debate among countries in the tropics.In 2002 following the WSSD in Johannesburg, South Africa, veritable anti-corruption tool within the extractive industry namely; Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) was acceded.This provides a new look at corruption dynamics among the resource rich but poor countries.How has the public institutions in Africa and policy framings been designed to institutionalize resource transparency at post EITI?
In oil rich countries like Sao Tome and Principe, "The United States and the United Nations have pressured Menezes and his government into adopting an oil law designed to guarantee that all of Sao Tome's windfall income from petroleum is transparently spent on improving the lives of the tiny country's 140,000 inhabitants". 4 The oil rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria has remained volatile with militants, though the late President Yaradua granted amnesty to the militants; the agitation has not ebbed.
South Africa's current status as a regional hegemon being a member of the BRICS, is yet to pull the continent out of poverty, despite its rich mineral resources, poverty index remains high; for instance, the 2010 Global poverty index placed the country at a high poverty ratio.
Again, the several scandals of President Jacob Zuma including alleged corrupt practices, threatens resource transparency of the country. 5 Whereas most countries of East Asia have transformed to developmental states.Young observed that; "Indeed, the only two African states whose macroeconomic statistics come close to matching Asian norms are Botswana and Mauritius, the only countries to enjoy democratic rule throughout the post -independence period (Young,1990) A similar view contends that throughout Africa, "from Algeria to Zaire, bureaucrats and politicians promote perverse economic policies, which while impoverishing most of society, provide concentrated and significant benefits to the national elites and interest groups" (Mbaku, 1996).Public service or bureaucratic corruption reinforces a breach of the public trust when the state or government lacks the capacity to demonstrate its commitment to public interest.
The resource-rich countries tend to grow at a slower rate than other countries.One often-cited reason that resource abundance fosters is a 'rentier' economy with rampant corruption and poorly developed institutions (Aidt, 2011).
Ngamlana observed in South Africa, that; "despite the efforts of state institutions such as the Public Protector, National Prosecuting Authority, Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and the HAWKS and many others, corruption in South Africa has taken a turn for the worse. 6"As if the arms deal, the oilgate, Shabir Shaik and the 'Jackie Selebi and friends' saga were not bad enough, we continue to see worse shenanigans involving senior politicians and high profile government employees.Reports of tender irregularities by the Public Protector implicating Public Works Minister and Police Commissioner come as no surprise when one tracks back how half-heartedly government had committed to the fight against corruption". 7 Recently, South African Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Jeff Radebe released the names of 42 people convicted of fraud and corruption -and promised to release many more -as a sign of the government's intent to clamp down on corrupt officials. 8Lodge had argued on political corruption in South Africa as its prevalence remains pervasive (Lodge, 1998).
In oil resource abundant South Sudan, on 15th December, 2013 fighting broke out in Juba and quickly spread to many parts of the country.More than 1,000,000 people fled their homes; some to within South Sudan and others to neighboring countries such as Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya. 9 According to World Report 2013, corruption, poverty and repression continue to plague Equatorial Guinea under President Teodoro Nguema Mbasogo who has been in power since 1979.Vast oil revenue fund lavish lifestyles for the small elite surrounding the president, while most of the population lives in poverty.Those who question this disparity are branded "enemies" 10  In Gabon, weak institutional structure manifests in a number of ways including the civil service and "ghost" civil servants.In September 2013 corruption investigation in the central African nation uncovered 3,000 fake civil servants receiving salaries. 11 Despite oil wealth, which accounted for over $7billion in 2008, Republic of the Conco remains one of the most corrupt and indebted countries in the world, and its oil wealth has contributed to several bloody wars.While the majority of the population are mired in poverty, a minority surrounding the family of President Denis Sassou Ngueso are able to live in luxury . 12The 2003 corruption trial of numerous former executives of the French state oil firm Elf Aquitaine exposed how the company paid off the Congolese political elite in return for access to oil.Elf has even been implicated in the supply of weapons in exchange for oil during the civil war. 13 Much of the natural resource wars and corruption in Angola was ignited with the likes of the late resource militia, Jonas Savimbi, whose death has not restored resource transparency."Angola is one of the most egregious examples of a venal and despotic state fuelled by oil.The large-scale production of oil off its Atlantic coast in the 1960s extended and fuelled the 40-year-long Angolan civil war.During that period, 1 million people out of a population of 13 million were killed and 1.7 million people were displaced" (Guest, 2004;Leon, 2010).
Human Rights Watch alleged that the Angolan leaders have "lost" more than $4 billion of state revenue between 1997and 2002(Human Rights Watch, 2004).
Sao Tome and Principe's oil wealth seem to overtake its once flourishing cocoa economy.There are well documented evidences of corruption and non-transparency in the exploitation of the oil resource.According to a particular account, "Many people point to the mysterious ability of senior government officials earning meagre salaries of only a few hundred dollars per month to erect luxury villas in the Campo do Milho, a new suburb springing up on the road from Sao Tome city to the nearby airport" 14.Despite the increasing prosperity of an affluent minority in Sao Tome, overall living standards have fallen steadily in recent years, leaving the country with a per capita income of just US $390 per year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). 15 Similarly, in oil rich Chad, poverty is on the increase due to corruption.Nadjikimo Benoudjita, the Editor of Notre Temps, one of Chad's few opposition papers doubts, that oil will change anything.He said; "corruption isn't just a part of Chad: it's everything" 16.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study reveals new lines of inquiry from the institutional approach which has been influential to re-value development administration and corruption dynamics at post 1990 Africa.Scott (2004b) opined that institutional theory attends to the deeper and more resilient aspects of social structure.It considers the processes by which structures, including schemas, rules, norms, and routines become established as authoritative guidelines for social behavior.It inquires into how these elements are created, diffused, adopted, and adapted over space and time; and how they fall into decline and disuse.Although the ostensible subject is stability and order in social life, students of institutions must perforce attend not just to consensus and conformity but to conflict and change in social structures.
The study deploys secondary data sets that builds on authoritative in-depth studies such as relevant Transparency International (TI) reports, World Bank Corruption Perception Index (CPI), UNDP Human Development reports(HDR), EITI reports and related seminal surveys and literature to examine the research subject.This aimed to broaden the scope of the study with a mapping of incidence of corruption among purposively selected countries within Africa.
Our study spans between 1990 and 2013.The period is important as it captures the end of cold war and changing forms African corruption dynamics have assumed at the resurgence of multiparty democracy and more importantly, the developmental states of Asia and need for transformation of Africa's public administration to follow suit.
More importantly, novel emphasis is laid on resource transparency among the resource rich African countries, following the introduction of Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in 2002 and the Natural Resources Charter.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This study shows that there is weak institutional structure to check corruption in Africa as public corruption is pervasive.A number of seminal data corroborate our findings for instance, among West African countries, a survey Report on National Perception and Attitude towards corruption carried out in 2000 by the National Reform Strategy of Sierra Leone, 92.3% of respondents considered bribery to be the most corrupt practice.In the survey, 94% of respondents considered corruption to be most rampant in government departments. 17 The 2012 Transparency International report provided data on African countries with high corruption index for 2011: Nigeria is placed at a distant of 143 with a score of 2.4, only ahead of Togo (143), Uganda (143), Central African Republic (154), Congo Republic (154), Cote d'Ivoire (154), Guinea Bissau (154), Kenya (154), Zimbabwe (154), Guinea (164), Angola (168), Chad (168), Democratic Republic of Congo (168), Libya (168), Burundi (172), Equatorial Guinea (172), Sudan (177) and Somalia (182) 18.Among resource rich countries, several factors affect the post EITI extractive policies.In oil rich Equatorial Guinea, a close observer argued; "there is no such law in nearby Equatorial Guinea, where Obiang….spent$55 million on buying a brand new presidential jet, even though his 500,000 people still lack a reliable electricity supply and clean drinking water." 19 Similar results such as the 2013 TI's institutional corruption survey shows that Africa ranks high in corruption.Africa has prolonged retention of disastrous corrupt practices, such as organized crimes including the ongoing horning of elephant for Ivory in East Africa which endangers elephant species, the Boko Haram terorism in Northern Nigeria, El shabaab terrorism in Somalia, extravagant lifestyles of African leaders such as President Ali Bongo of Gabon, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo-Brazzaville, Isabel Dos Santos-daughter of the President of Angola etc.
On March 31 st 2013, it was reported that South African President Jacob Zuma denied any wrongdoing over a $23 million state-funded security upgrade to his private home at his Nkandla home, on February 20, 2014, President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria announced the suspension of the country's Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi who publicly alleged that $20 billion (£12bn) in oil revenue had gone missing In Burkina Faso, a corruption survey identified the police as the most corrupt institution.In Senegal, a survey carried out by 'Forum Civil' identified the traffic police, customs officials and police as the most corrupt institutions. 20 A similar survey in Ghana conducted by the Centre for Democratic Development-Ghana with the World Bank in 2000 revealed that most Ghanaians considered the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) of the Police Services, the Customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS), the Regular Police and the Immigration Service as the most corrupt public institutions. 21 Majority of the respondents said they have had to pay bribes to officials in these institutions on some occasions.Most Ghanaian businesses said they felt reluctant using the law courts to address conflict because of the prevalence of corruption in the judiciary (Atuobi, 2007).
The survey result blamed high level of corruption in Ghana on low salaries, culture of gift giving, absence of or weak corruption reporting system and poor internal management practices.Political corruption is also rampant.Most state officials -president, ministers, legislators, governors etc -see political offices as opportunity to make wealth. 22 For instance, in September 2006, the Economic Crimes Commission of Nigeria charged 15 of the 36 states Governors of corruption.Most of them were suspected of stealing public funds and money laundering. 23Currently Chief James Ibori a former Governor of Delta State in Nigeria is serving a jail term in the UK for corruption charges including embezzlement of public funds .
In a recent release, Transparency International's 2013 country wide rating placed two key institutions in Nigeria as the most corrupt namely; the police force and political parties. 24  Despite recent efforts to clamp on corrupt public officers including the arrest and jail term for some ministers in 2007 by President Paul Biya, public corruption remains an issue in Cameroon. 25 In 2007, a survey by the non-governmental organization German Technical Cooperation, GTZ, and the Cameroon business leaders union, GICAM, among others, showed that corruption is severely hampering economic progress. 26Of over 1,000 business managers polled, 49 percent acknowledged paying bribes to dodge taxes, while 36 percent said they spent up to five percent of their profit bribing government officials to get public contracts and other advantage. 27 On 24 April 2013, Rana Plaza -an eight-storey complex containing several clothing factories -collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh.Some 1,135 garment workers died and over 2,500 were injured in the biggest disaster the Bangladeshi garment industry has ever seen.The tragedy captured global attention with coverage routinely detailing the horrific working conditions employees were forced to endure, inspectors easily subverted by corruption and factories built on illegally occupied land. 28 In Malawi, one of the biggest scandals in the country "the cash gate scandal" since 2013 involves an estimated US$20 million to US$100 million that has gone missing from government coffers.It became news last year immediately after Malawi's budget director was shot under circumstances that still remain a mystery, and huge sums of cash in both local and foreign currency were found in the vehicles and homes of some civil servants, most of them low-ranking junior accountants. 29 In Zambia, government nationalization of the copper mines and the installation of a one party state that lasted for 25 years should be considered mileposts on the Zambian road to ruin. 30The Zambian's democracy transition and election of Frederick Chiluba (1991Chiluba ( -2001) ) exemplify the dangers inherent in superficial democratizations.During his time in office, this democratically elected leader of Zambians stole tens of millions of dollars.In 2008, a British court found that Chiluba conspired to steal $40 million, while the Zambian Government claimed that it recovered $60 million by freezing his assets at home and overseas. 31 Ayittey ( 2002) presented the loot of some African Heads of State, as shown in Table 1.
On the other hand, the greater challenge is perhaps the involvement of the Western institutions and government in corruption in Africa."A famous post colonial description of the relations between France and Africa proposed that "France without Africa is like a car without petrol'.This strategy has continued to have practical consequences.For example, the succesful rebellion that enabled President Sessou to seize power in Congo Brazaville was helped by substantial finance from ELF, which was followed by a generous concession awarded by President Sessou to ElF.Similarly by the time Laurent Kabila became president of DRC, he had reputedly already signed up $500m of rsource extraction contracts" (Collier, 2006).Even within Africa there are extreme asymmetries of power.President Kabila granted valuable concessions to President Mugabe and the army of Zimbabwe in order to buy what was in effect mercenary defense service (Ibid).
Equally, Nigeria has a strategic interest in Sao Tome where it has oil concession after resisting a coup attempt against President Fradique de Menezes on 16 July, 2003. Collier (2006) observed that both at the global level and in Africa, the rule of law is fragile.Both international political economy and the political economy of Africa can therefore draw upon the new institutional economics of "lawlessness".
The imminent danger posed by corruption in Africa however suggests the need to combine open deliberation of policy issues involving civil society groups with the constitutional right to challenge prevailing elite interests.

Conclusion: Africa in Search of Alternative Transformation Model
This paper provides dynamics of corruption and development administration failures in Africa.Our analysis is guided by institutional theoretical framework and complemented by theoretical evidence.Democracy transition has not transformed corruption in Africa since the 1990s.Attaining to a developmental state status remains a far cry.This does not presuppose pessimism; rather Africa should rise and confront development failures.Chinua Achebe observed that; "The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership" (Achebe, 1983).The forgone reveals that same could be said of contemporary Africa.The paper shows that there is strong evidence that most African states lack a clearly focused "development" orientation or ideology aimed at bringing their countries out of poverty.It draws from the experience of East Asian countries which pursued development ideologies and suggests that development administration practice should now be guided by certain ethical guidelines defined on the basis of social justice, transparency, accountability and equality in order for African states to transform to developmental states.
In the almost 40 years since Walter Rodney's seminal book; How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Rodney, 1972) launched the vast research programme on the dynamics of European imperialism and capitalist exploitation, there is hardly any long term transformation paradigm shift in Africa's development strategies.Although two democratic developmental African States namely; Bostwana and Mauritius are seminal evidence that Africa could be transformed, the rest of Africa is yet to follow suit.
A trajectory which this study makes is that though corruption transformation in Africa is possible, it is at the moment riddled with uncertainties.Weak institutional structures, poor macroeconomic policies, poor leadership etc have made the clamour and quest for corruption amelioration paradoxical in Africa.The paper suggests radical overhaul of public administration.
Castells observed that a developmental state "establishes as its principles of legitimacy its ability to promote sustained development, understanding by development of the steady high rates of economic growth and structural change in the productive system, both domestically and in its relationship with the international economy" (Castells, 1992).Maundeni (2010) builds on Chalmers Johnson's "priority model" to explore the rise of developmental states in East Asia.Johnson's priority-based developmental state theory points out that it is important to consider state priorities in any developmental state research.
He starts his definition by categorizing the state as either developmental, or regulatory, or pursuing equality, or ideological, or military, or many others.Johnson (1982) says these states are explained by their priorities.He defines the developmental state as that which prioritizes economic development or pursues developmental nationalism (Ibid).
Self-reliant strategies are proposed as several scholars are aware that the international community are "ill equipped" for institutional overhaul of Africa.
Joseph observed, "The international financial agencies, which dominate economic policy and resource mobilezation in Africa, are ill -equipped to play political midwife, while the diplomatic services of Western industrialized countries are seldom able to counter the strategies of incumbent regimes to adopt variations of the "Chinese model", market reforms accompanied by limited or deferred political liberalization" (Joseph, 1997).
We have explored an array of corrupt indices derailing institutional transformation and development administration.We suggest transparent, "statist nationalist" and " liberal economic" models as "priority" for Africa.
Influential economist Gunner Mydal, in this line of debate, demonstrated how two non-communist East Asian countries namely; India and Indonesia adopted a statist nationalist and liberal economic models respectively (Mydal, 1968).Africa could pursue similar ideologies.
Johnson argued, "a state attempting to match the economic achievements of Japan must adopt the same priorities as Japan, it must pursue developmental nationalism.It must first of all be a developmental stateand only then a regulatory state, a welfare state, an equality state, or whatever other kind of functional state a society may wish to adopt'' (Johson, 1982).He argues that for fifty years the Japanese State has given its first priority to economic development.He further observed that post war Japan established a developmental state in which there was a clear focus on making the country rich (Ibid).
Developmental state debate shows that even countries with great potential for development such as abundant natural resources, without "developmental" orientationaccountability, transparency, sound macroeconomic policies etc will fail to achieve sustained economic progress; much of Africa falls within this category.
The 'institutional failure' diagnosis has led international engagement towards a focus on more pro poor approaches to Africa's development and corruption amelioration.The use of Corruption Risk Assessors (CRAs) and related institutional changes is important.The range of (external) policy instruments, of which EITI is but one, aimed as much at shifting the political equilibriumthough enforcing greater transparency and accountability on political elites in ways that promote choices that deliver 'developmental outcomes' in natural resource transfers has been minimal, evolving indigenous (internal) strategies as suggested is a viable option as corruption remains a development issue.

Table 1 .
Loot of some African heads of state.