Topic > Corruption: causes, effects and ways to prevent it

Recently, the World Bank and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) have highlighted corruption by publicly declaring it as the number one enemy. It was a threat globally and also in Malaysia. According to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (2016), bribery can be described as the act of assigning or accepting payments or rewards in the form of high-value money or in kind for performing a task in relation to one's job description. no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Many causes lead to corruption. According to Sumah (2018), corruption trends are strongly influenced by the political and economic context. Individuals are willing to pay or give compensation to escape the restrictions in which officials are allowed to decide based on the discretion provided by the regulation. Furthermore, lack of professional ethics and poor laws can regulate corruption. It also leads to a lack of accountability and oversight institutions. Besides that, customs, traditions and demographics can cause corruption. Sumah (2018) states that different countries have different attitudes towards corruption. Then there are also different customs; in some cases, a "thank you" in the form of a service gift is an expression of courtesy, while elsewhere it is considered bribery. Rasuah (2013) also argues that personal weaknesses are the causes that lead the person himself to commit corruption. Their attitude towards a luxurious lifestyle makes them want to practice corruption due to a lack of morals and ethics. Leadership weaknesses are also the main cause of corruption. Ineffective and weak leadership leads to less supervision and monitoring towards employees. Furthermore, modern development factors can increase the rate of corruption. Developers wanted to get a good deal and place for their projects and constructions. To get the deal, they are willing to pay higher costs for it. Last but not least, corruption is due to social and cultural factors. As we can observe in today's life, money or gifts are given to a certain person who achieves good results or performance. In our eyes we do not consider it an act of corruption. But when the person giving the money or gift has a different intention, somehow it will be considered bribery. Corruption can affect people, society and the economy. “15 Effects of Corruption” (2019) states that corruption has a great impact on people. The quality of services will be lacking. People may have to pay to expect quality. This can be observed in many sectors, such as electricity, distribution of aid funds, and so on. Beyond that, we as a people will experience the lack of adequate justice. People will suffer from inadequate justice where evidence is lacking or even facts are removed. Help criminals roam freely to commit even more crimes. According to “15 Effects of Corruption” (2019), corruption can cause chances of unemployment. Even if there are well-qualified people who want a position in a company or job, they will not be offered it. If employers did not corrupt, there would be the possibility of creating more jobs. Other than that, real research will fail. Specific research requires government funding. So, some agencies involved in procurement have corrupt officials. These people approve research funds for those researchers who can bribe them. Likewise, society will also be affected by corruption. It will happencontempt for officials. People started ignoring the corrupt official by speaking negatively about him. Lack of respect for officials can often lead to distrust. Lower-ranking officers would also ignore higher-ranking officers. Furthermore, the phenomenon of corruption can cause a lack of respect towards rulers. If politicians engage in corruption, people who know it will lose respect for them and will not want to vote for such politicians. The public will lose respect towards the rulers of the nation such as prime ministers or presidents. The “15 Effects of Corruption” (2019) also mentions that corruption could cause a lack of trust in the government. Citizens vote based on their trust in him to become a leader. Yet people lose faith in them if they find themselves involved in corruption and may not vote next time. Not only that, there may also be aversion to joining positions linked to corruption. Sincere, honest, and hardworking people develop a dislike for the job, even if they like it because they believe that if they get the job, they will have to get involved in corruption. In that case, the country's economy would also be affected by corruption. According to “15 Effects of Corruption” (2019), a decrease in foreign investment could occur due to corruption. There are many cases where foreign investment in developing countries has declined due to heavy corruption in government bodies. Delayed economic growth and lack of development also cause corruption. If the area is not suitable, most new industries willing to start in a particular region will change their plans. Businesses don't want to start up there if there aren't good highways, water and electricity. This hinders the economic progress of the region. Corruption can cause differences in business relationships. Some countries have ineffective standard testing institutions. In other words, these standards testing institutes are corrupt in being able to approve low quality products for sale in their country. Corrupt activity can happen anywhere. But there are some places where corruption is more likely to occur or known as “hot spots”. According to “5 Ways to Reduce Corruption and the Places It Exists” (2016), corruption can occur with a government official, whose job is to review, report and maintain all land records. Recently, there have been many court cases that have their roots in a land dispute. As for this agency, if people pay attention to professional responsibility, land disputes can be significantly reduced or resolved more quickly. This would explain quite extensive corruption regulation. The medical sector is another form of career where corruption is rampant. In villages and cities there are many state hospitals and public health centers. But ordinary people are almost never treated properly in government hospitals. Medicines and other necessary services in public hospitals are inadequate. The poor, who depend only on state hospitals, suffer because they cannot afford treatment. “5 Ways to Reduce Corruption and the Places Where It Exists” (2016) states that the revenue department can be a place where corruption occurs. A fairly large number of workers are unethical. They take bribes and let the person who hasn't paid their taxes off the hook. For example, paying income tax. Not only that, the police department and officers is one of the places that leads to corruption. We are surrounded by a lot of violence and criminals carry out their work without fear. That isit is due to the fact that some officers did not take their profession seriously. Last but not least is the judiciary department (“5 ways to reduce corruption and the places where it exists”, 2016). In our country the judicial system is very behind. As a result, the number of cases is increasing every day. If trials are speedy, people may realize that they will face punishment if they do something wrong or commit a crime. People will, therefore, try to bribe. Corruption can occur in any situation and place. First, it occurs when policies and procedures are absent, unclear, or inadequately enforced. Because of this situation, people will not take it for granted and will ignore all stated policies. Secondly, is when the employee's training is inadequate. The training is aimed at increasing the level of technical skills, knowledge, efficiency and ethics to carry out any specific job in a much better way. But nowadays this type of training is not practiced and this situation causes employees' loyalty towards that company to decrease. Furthermore, it happens when controls such as audits are missing. Audit techniques are used by auditors to determine the quality of their clients' financial information. When auditors don't regularly review financial information, clients can easily cheat third parties. The “Conditions that may allow corruption to occur” mentions that corruption occurs when lines of communication and reporting are unclear. Lines of communication may include a chain of command that requires workers to interact only with their direct supervisor rather than providing feedback or complaints directly to higher-level members in the organizational chart. Some of the irresponsible supervisors will take the opportunity to carry out unethical activities without permission from higher-level members. Another corruption situation occurs when employee supervision and performance are inadequate. When the employee himself feels that his performance is decreasing, this will cause disappointment in employers. To bring things back to normal, employees will pay a bribe to employers for the sake of their career future. Corruption can develop when employees have a high level of discretion in decision making. Discretion occurs when workers have the right to choose whether or not to act, approve or not, or agree to certain conditions. Therefore, some of them will turn their back on certain conditions because they already accept a bribe from that specific person. Furthermore, this unethical problem occurs when employees have developed a close relationship with external stakeholders. Finally, it happens when accepted ethical standards are lacking. Ethical standards such as accountability, honesty, transparency and fairness are not practiced on a daily basis by the public, employees and employers. The lack of these ethical standards can drastically increase the level of corruption in our country. There are many ways to prevent corruption. According to “Rasuah: Faktor, kesan dan langkah pencegahan” (2013), corruption can be prevented by law enforcement. It is to ensure that the corrupt professional thinks twice before doing so or accepting a bribe. Heavy punishments should be given to them and the public would realize the danger of corruption. Furthermore, through an awareness campaign, corruption can also be curbed. The government and non-government should collaborate to conduct an awareness campaign.