Introduction
Public administration is the aggregate of organizations, people, formal and informal roles, capacities, roles and practices with the statutory mission to convert policies into laws and budget into useful services to citizens (Lora 5). The rules and routine that are found in the entire public administration such as those concerned with the budget as well as financial management, civil service, procurement, organizational development and control normally generate certain incentives that guide, constrict, and motivate the action of the organizations as well as those of the public officials involved (Lora 6). So it is possible to summarize that public administration reforms entail a set of coherent interventions that attempt to redirect these institutional incentives to enables stakeholders to increase efficiency and effectiveness of organizations and the officials together with their responsibilities for the generation of useful services to the citizens.
Basically, there are some critical aspects of administrative reforms. The first is the degree to which the reform process has been attempted to affect or have achieved certain impacts on the various cross-sectional components of the public administration e.g. budget, control, civil service, procurement, organizational development, and many more (Davis & North 17). The other aspect basically involves the depth attempted or achieved in modifying these cross-sectional components (Davis & North 18). In both aspects, there is the degree of achievement measurements in relation to streamlining the processes in terms of transparency building in order to increase the efficiency of the processes.
In Latin America, there have been some major reform processes in relation to comprehensiveness and depth that were proposed and to some extent achieved. The first high profile reform agenda was that of public apparatus in Brazil which took place between 1995 and 1998 in the first Cradoso administration (Tulchin & Espach 37). This particular reform gave rise to a constitutional amendment supported by a majority of congress. In Contrast to Brazil is Chile, which has been implementing an ongoing reform that gained impetus and scope overtime from 1990 all the way to 2003 (Lora 44). The other is the reform initiative in Peru that took place between 1995 and 1997 (Lora 48). This reform took a different course as compared to that of Brazil and Chile in that it started from the concerns about the fiscal weight of the public sector payroll during the first Fujimori administration (1990-1995) (Lora 48). The government agenda incorporated research agenda in 1995 with the shared but conflicting leadership between the presidency of the council of ministers with whom the emphasis was placed on the organizational and management aspects of the reform against the Ministry of Economy and Finance, which emphasized the reduction of the fiscal weight of the payroll (Lora 49).
Generally, we are quite aware that these reforms took place with some level of measured success in some aspects of reform agendas such as constitutional reforms, organizational restructuring (that led to establishment of new institutions), public sector management system, and many more. However, what is not clear is whether these reforms had any impact on the lowering of the level of corruption, a subset of all reform agendas in the modern public administration. So did the landmark reforms that took place in Brazil, Chile and Peru lower the level of corruption in their respective public sectors? I may hypothesize that other than bringing other remarkable changes, the reforms also managed to lower the corruption cases (level) in these three Latin American countries. This paper highlights some of the relevant information in line with public sector reforms in the three Latin American nations, to help in the subsequent critical analysis of these reforms in order to establish their effectiveness in relation to war against corruption. This is achieved through the help of institutional theoretical framework with cross-national study of three Latin American nations, Brazil, Chile and Peru. CPI score data from Transparency International has been used as the main source of information, supported by some other surrogate data sources from other scholarly materials.
The Reforms and their Impacts
Brazil
The reform in Brazil took place between 1995 and 1998 in the first Cardoso administration (Tulchin & Espach 37). One of the most significant end products of this reform is that it led to a constitutional amendment that got the support of majority in congress (Tulchin & Espach 36-37). The reforms were the authorization of new forms of organization like agencies and quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations, new forms of public forms of public employment and the increased flexibility in the job security of the public officials (Tulchin & Espach 37). According to Tulchin & Espach, the reforms significantly strengthened the merit-based character of the central administration, promoting its professionalism as well as reducing the weight of the public payroll in the federal budget (37). The Ministry of Administration and State Reform was later abolished immediately after the passage of the reforms, making the reform process lose some of its impetus even though this did not reverse the process (38).
Chile
Chilean government has been in the process of implementing reforms since 1990 and it has subsequently gained impetus and scope over time (Lora 44). Even though at initial stages of 1990-1994, the government did not take its administrative reform agenda seriously, some specific initiatives were developed for unifying conditions in the administration and modernizing of some agencies (Lora 44). It was between 1994 and 19996 when the issue moved up the government agenda, generating a set of initiatives that were aimed at changing the focus of reform agenda in the public administration towards such parameters as efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of service (Lora 44). To facilitate the process, an inter-ministerial committee was set up oversee these reforms, with the ministry of finance taking the lead role in the process (Lora 44).
At the beginning of 1997, a structured reform program was implemented in various elements of the administration, with a more comprehensive strategic definition and initiative in areas of information technology, government purchasing, management redesign and management by results (Lora 45). Among other things, the program established a system of management agreement and system evaluation by results, which were both linked to the budgetary appropriations of every agency (Lora 44).
The last reform came in 2003 when some significant reform to public employment was implemented with establishment of the Public Senior Management System for a merit-based selection of senior civil service employees, and a new policy on access to jobs and professional careers (Lora 45).
Peru
The Peru reform initiative took place between 1995 and 1997 in a different course (Lora 45). Invoked by the concerns related to the fiscal weight of the public sector payroll in the first Fujimori administration between 1990 and 1995, the reforms came into the government agenda in 1995 Lora (Lora 46). In fact, the shared leadership was in conflict, brought about by the difference between the Presidency of the Council of Ministers who emphasized on the organizational and management aspects of the reform, against the Ministry of Economy and Finance which specifically emphasized the reduction of fiscal weight of the payroll (Lora 46). A specific attempt was made to exploit the opportunities that emerged in the 1995 Budget Law that delegated legislative powers to the executive for approval for a vast set of reforms (Lora 46). These reforms ranged from organizational restructuring of the ministries to the modernization of personnel management, government purchases, and control systems (Lora 47). Concerned with time taken for the reforms, a team of consultants prepared a vast package of legal reform proposals in 1996, which eventually collided with the insurmountable obstacle of presidential disapproval (Weyland 108; Lora 47). This particular veto was a result of fear of the inherent high political cost that would come with an initiative that would significantly reduce the workforce (Weyland 108). The perceived political impact subsequently led to its resistance from important sectoral interests in the cabinet itself because quite a number of ministers would have lost their political clout and power in the organizational restructuring (Weyland 108). In lieu of this, what followed was the disbandment of the reform proposals, which were later sent to the congress after the powers delegated to the president had expired, only to face rejection by the congress and was subsequently not passed (Weyland 108).
Theoretical Framework
The Institutional Theory: Diffusion of Innovation
The study focuses on how the changes occurred through public institutions. Basically, institutions are the guiding rules of the society or organizations that spearhead and enhance coordination among the citizens by supporting them in the formation of the expectations which each individual can sensibly hold in dealing with others (Tulchin & Espach 4). According to Tulchin & Espach, they reflect the conventions that have occurred with time in relation to their own behavior and other people’s behaviors (5). Institutions are a good measure of economic success because they have critical role in establishing the expectations about rights to use resources in the economic activities and about partitioning of income streams that results from economic activity (Tulchin & Espach 5). Stapenhurst (78) states, “Institutions provide assurance respecting the actions of others, and give order and stability to expectations in the complex and uncertain world of economic relations.”
For the performance of the essential role of forming some justified expectations in operating among the people, institutions must be stable for some longer period (Stapenhurst 79). However, institutions, just like technology, must also change for the development to take place (Davis & North 119). According to Davis & North, anticipation of the latent gains to be realized by overcoming the imbalance that results from changes in factor endowments, product demand, and technical change are the representatives of the powerful inducements to institutional innovation (120). In practice, institutions that have efficiently generated growth in the past may, overtime come to direct their efforts basically to make sure they protect their vested interests of some of its members by maintaining the status quo and subsequently end up becoming the barrier to any further changes (Davis & North 120). This will lead to growth of disequilibria in resource allocation as a result of institutional constraints that was generated by the economic growth, and consequently create the opportunities for political entrepreneurs or leaders to organize collective action to bring about institutional change (Davis & North 120).
My perspective of where the demand for institutional change comes from share some similarity with the Marxian view, cited in Davis & North (98). In deed, Marx took change in technology as the basic driving force for institutional change (Davis & North 98). However, my view will deviate a little bit in terms of complexity in that changes in barriers to equal and just distribution of resources or concealment of loopholes that encourage public resource embezzlement are equally significant enough to invoke institutional change. This view is more inclined towards Lance Davis and Douglass North, the view that basic institutions such as property rights and markets are more typically altered through cumulative incremental institutional changes such as modification of contractual relations, change in market structure (Davis & North 6).
The institutional change has both the supply dimension and the demand dimension (Solimano 88). It therefore means that the collective actions to change in the supply of institutional innovations entail the struggles between the various interest groups (Solimano 88). In this view, I believe that the supply of institutional innovation has a strong influence from the cost of gaining the social consensus. It is therefore possible to clarify that how much institutional change will cost the structure of power will determine its acceptance among those with vested interest. Solimano (89) states, it will critically depend on the ideological set up and cultural beliefs such as nationalism, that make particular institutional arrangements more easily accepted as compared to others.
This paper relies on the theoretical assumptions of Davis and North, modified to portray administration as a form of activity, an arrangement as well as grouped of factors to represent some important political phenomenon for change driven aim. Again after realizing that just a mere imposition of a paradigm may not be very significant in the long run or may not help solve the complex problem of corruption, I decided to integrate the other supportive alternatives such as Marx theory. This is in line with Frederickson and Smith (4) who observed; public administration is both interdisciplinary and applied, thus “no theory standing a lone is capable of accounting for the complexity of the field” (Frederickson and Smith 4).
Methodology
Corruption Perception Index (CPI Score)
The choice of CPI score is driven by the fact that Transparency International had devised this method of corruption after realizing the important connection between fight against corruption and the citizens’ perception of the individual country. Furthermore, there has not been any well structured and objective-oriented means of measuring corruption (Banerjee & Duflo 3) It is important to note the definition of corruption that TI uses to measure the level corruption. According to TI’s definition; “Corruption is the misuse of public power for private benefits e.g. the bribing of public officials, taking kickbacks in public procurement or embezzlement of public funds” (TI 2). I therefore feel that these CPI scores from TI depict somewhat accurate information on the level and depth of corruption in the respective countries. TI creates these scores through their annual survey of business people as well as risk analysis experts (TI 1). According to Banerjee & Duflo (4), CPI is an elite survey whose results are popular with the economists who are interested in the assessment of the effect of corruption on the micro-variables and thus it is best indicator that can capture the overall corruption world over, taking into consideration the nation as units of measurements (Banerjee & Duflo 4).
The study therefore used Transparency International’s CPI scores to capture the cross national variance in corruption in relation to landmark reforms in the three countries.
Scope
This study focused on the three countries of Latin America because they had the most elaborate reform agendas with distinct features to represent other nations in the region. Their readily available literature also informed their choice. However, it must be acknowledged that each country has its unique ways of political corruption and approach to reform agenda that it would be unscholarly to assume wholesomely that the findings here are uniform across Latin America. These findings should just be a base for launching other studies. It is therefore prudent that an elaborate study be carried out to establish into details the specific trends in these nations and how reforms have impacted on the war against corruption.
Results
Brazil
The progress in Brazil as a country in fight against corruption has not been reflective of the nature of reform. Though my study could not get access to the data that relates to corruption perception before in 2000, scanty information indicate that in 1997 corruption perception was moderately high in Brazil (Banerjee & Duflo 4).
However, the data from 2006 through to 2009 indicate rather insignificant changes in CPI scores despite the link between public administration reforms to fight against corruption (See table 1 (a) below). Even earlier, 2003, 2004, and 2005 data, the figure did not go past the bracket of 3, with the highest coming from the 2003 data that had the highest score of 3.9.
Table 1 (a): Brazil CPI score (Source: TI database)
According to Transparency International, any score below 5 is a sign of serious corruption cases (TI 1). It is therefore important t note that Brazil as a country has not scored fairly well in its fight against corruption through its massive public sector reforms from the 1990s through to 2000s.
Even though reform in Brazil that took off in 1995 led to one of the most important aspect of public administration, constitutional amendments due to the support of majority in congress, its impact has not trickled down in relation to corruption agenda. This is despite the fact that reform agenda in this country were triggered by the political corruption (Davies 67). As earlier illustrated, these reforms consisted of the authorization of new forms of organization like agencies and quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations, new forms of public forms of public employment and the increased flexibility in the job security of the public officials. Significant to note is that the reforms strengthened the merit-based character of the central administration, promoting its professionalism as well as reducing the weight of the public payroll in the federal budget (Tulchin & Espach 37). However, the dwindling of its impact on the corruption could be linked to the disbandment of the Ministry of Administration and State Reform that spearheaded its passage, thus making the process loose its strength and impetus (Tulchin & Espach 37-38).
Chile
In contrary to the trend in Brazil, Chile has been consistently better off in terms of corruption perception index ranking (see table 1 (a) below). According to the 1997 data, Chile’s CPI index was moderately low with a score of 3.9. In this perspective, it is possible to note that the public reform agenda has worked relatively well in Chile as compared to Brazil.
Table 1 (b): Chile CPI score (Source: TI database)
Chile’s case is a different case all together. It has demonstrated the value of consistency in terms of government’s commitment to the process of reform implementation since 1990, subsequently gaining impetus and scope over time. Even though at initial stages of 1990-1994, the government did not take its administrative reform agenda, some specific initiatives were developed for unifying conditions in the administration and modernizing of some agencies (Lora 44). The earlier illustrations indicate that the reform agenda began to take serious effect from 1994 and 19996, where a set of initiatives were generated with the aim of changing the focus of reform agendas in the public administration towards such parameters as efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of service (Lora 44). The working together of the inter-ministerial committee and the ministry of finance is a sign of how unity with little political squabbles can bring an end to corruption impunity. The building of a structured reform program that was implemented in various elements of the administration also illustrates how a good initiative can work in a multifaceted problem like corruption. This worked with assistance from more comprehensive strategic definition and initiative in areas of information technology, government purchasing, management redesign and management by results (Lora 44).
Peru
Peru’s public sector reform, just like Brazil has not had any significant change in perception in their commitment to war against corruption. According to the information from the previous years before the reform agenda, the perception was no much different as the public decried rampant corruption as the source of poverty and inequality in the country (Weyland 109). It is therefore significant to presume that the reforms have been superficial in nature and that no amount of changes in the public sector has changed the corruption level.
As earlier stated, the reforms ranged from organizational restructuring of the ministries to the modernization of personnel management, government purchases, and control systems (Lora 45). In practical perspective, the reforms were slowed down by the conflicting political interest, with resistance from the political class who had seen the danger of interfering with the status quo. This eventually brought about the collision leading insurmountable obstacle of presidential disapproval. The political class was basically against the reforms that would reduce the workforce, hence threatening their political stability or leading to them being voted out by the furious citizens. This could explain the events that followed what where the congress disbanded the reform proposals (Lora 45). (See table 1 (c) below )
Table 1 (c): Peru CPI score (Source: TI database)
Discussion
Currently, most countries in Latin America have constitutions that would be considered democratic, together with functioning bureaucracies and the judiciaries (Stapenhurst 2). However, Stapenhurst observes that the operations of these institutions are simply patchy and do not have any impact on the general purpose of most of the nations (2). He states that some of the institutions in this region are as good as or even better than some in the developed nations, but are significantly plagued corruption and waste (Stapenhurst 2).
Over the last two decades the political happenings in Latin America has indeed invoked an important aspect of public administration. Scholars have gained a lot of interest in the political corruption that have plagued these nations that initially promised good future in the 1980s. It is important to note that corruption is a multifaceted and interdisciplinary aspect that has no limit to a particular sector. It is also important to acknowledge that corruption can only be minimized by the willingness of the powers that be and the trust between the public and the government (Stapenhurst 3). Interestingly, corruption scandals have brought down some of the most conspicuous governments in the advanced economy such as Germany during the times of Helmut Kohl and Great Britain (Peter Mandelson) (Stapenhurst 3). The political developments in the last two decades in some of Latin America’s states have exposed the significance of corruption at both national and regional level. From the beginning of 1990 all the way to 2000, nine presidents from Latin American states have either got the wrath of the public impeachment or have been exposed to the judiciary to answer corruption charges (Stapenhurst 3). They include Peru’s Alan Garcia (1985-1990), Brazil’s Fernando Collor de Meloo (1990-1992), Mexico’s Carlos Salinas de Gotari (1988-1994), Ecuador’s Bucaram (1996-1997), Alarcon (1997-1998), and Jamil Mahuad (1998-2000), Colombia’s Ernesto Samper (1994-1998), Argentina’s Carlos Menem (1989-1999), and Peru’s Albert Fujimori (1990-2000) (Stapenhurst 3). This information clearly shows how the level of corruption has a big political significance in these Latin American nations. Significantly, it is important to note that the CPI scores in the three Latin America studied in this paper significantly show the variance of the individual countries, particular Peru and Brazil. Furthermore, the available literature indicates that this kind of variation is almost uniform in most of the Latin America’s nations (Lora 48; Weyland 109; Tulchin & Espach 32). According to Tulchin & Espach, the Latin America states had CPI mean score of 3 between 1997 and 2000, and that only Chile showed some odd figures with more than 5 CPI score (33).
Reforms vs. Corruption
In practice, the purpose of reform has been historically aligned by three important aspects: how the state operates with its citizens and business, the professionalism as well as the level of honesty as practiced by the civil servants, and lastly the oversight of a government operations (Solimano 12). Notably, there are just a few reforms in Latin America that have been tested to meet the desired results (Marshall & Jaggers 11), however, how the these reforms have impacted on the corruption is apparently the issue at stake considering the rate of skepticism according to the CPI scores.
Many scholars have acknowledged that an institution which functions poorly is a prerequisite of harmful socio-economic outcomes even though cost-effect matrix can be quite difficult to interpret (Marshall & Jaggers 11; Kane & Anastasia 7). For instance, corruption has been billed to be a barrier to growth and at the same time it is perpetuated by disjointed economic performance (Kane& Anastasia 6). It is therefore logical to note that corruption is a sign of some weaknesses in the state operations thus if weakened, the operations will be efficient enough to limit the advancement and subsequently impact of corruption. However, the underlying challenges in the reform agenda may be overwhelming considering the multidimensional nature of corruption as a problem of institutional reforms.
Latin American states basically occupy the middle class of per capita income wellbeing, effectiveness of government, and the ability and quality of the institutions (Easterly 317). According to the United Nations Human Development Index cited in Easterly (318), the general rule that links good governance to the high rate of development in both political and socio-economic wellbeing is sometimes unique as seen with Chile in this study. It is evident that Chile scores highly according to CPI scores, i.e. it has gained some marginal gains from its relatively low corruption compared to its counterparts Brazil and Peru (Easterly 319). However, it is critical to note an exception with Brazil since according to its current economic performance; it is placed under the tag of emerging economy despite its high corruption level. It is therefore important to acknowledge some economists’ arguments that gains in overall wealth of a nation do not necessarily means equal distribution of resources or reduction in corruption cases (Davies 114). Hence a reform agenda to tackle corruption may be misinterpreted to mean economic wellbeing.
Public Administration and the Reform Agenda
It is said that a properly arranged bureaucracy not only facilitates economic growth but also influences the perception on specific reform agenda, hence boosting consensus for the benefits of reform implementation (Solimano 14). According to Solimano (14) if state functions are far from efficient, “even the most benign policy may have little effect” (Solimano 14). Basically, there are numerous channels in which public administration indicators can be considered to have performed poorly. It is quite logical to separate the functions of the office and the individual person’s roles from the person’s role as a private citizen (Solimano 15). Davies (39) observes that corruption in a bureaucratic system can be very difficult to eradicate if the systems involve family issues coupled with low salaries, however, this is not basically limited to low levels of corruption in the lower administrative rank if it has been deeply rooted in the political and administrative system.
The inherent complexity of corruption and its multi-dimensionality is also visible in how it interlocks with the legal system. Davies (40) observes that the perpetual problems hampering the Latin American states in their quest to minimize corruption are largely elated to the complex legal system. He states that this is why most of the citizens would accept bribes just to ease the burdens of going round the long red tape in the form legal systems (Davies 40). Still budgets are not properly tracked and controlled as would be required to the international level, hence leaving the public official to attempt misappropriation or embezzlement of the state resource or funds Davies (40) therefore recommend that any form of reform agenda must rely on the proper allocation of resources in a manner that would encourage moderate decentralization to help ease the tracking of public funds by both the state and the international community. As he puts it, “Too much decentralization risks capture by local elites; excessive centralization can lead to a rigid and unresponsive hierarchy” (Davies 40).
It is also important to note that high ranking corruption involving senior administration officials may bring the government down and subsequently lead to state of jeopardy. Its consequences may include bringing the government down as highlighted earlier and at the same time undermine the economy of the state, thus perpetuating poverty and ill activities. For instance a politician in the government system may collude with particular businesses to get some critical government contracts at a more costly amount, even more than twice the cost of the whole project. If this was a public utility project of a project for poverty reduction, the citizens will lose as the services will not be sufficient to match the needs. In practice, all these aspects of administrative weaknesses have been the characteristics of many Latin American states and inherently related to structural reforms that can be addressed by fundamental political and economic reforms (Davies 41).
The Reforms in Judiciary and Law Enforcement Procedures
Conventional wisdom informs us that independently competent Judiciary allows the rule of law to take its course as well as supporting both democratic systems and the operations of a free market (Solimano 17). Unfortunately, a study conducted by Banerjee A. & Duflo revealed a stunning case in Latin America. It was found out that 20-40% of Latin Americans expressed lack of confidence in their judiciary (20). In another survey in Peru that involved households’ interviews, it was established that most citizens of this country noted Judiciary to be the most corrupt institutions, followed by the police (Banerjee A. & Duflo 21). In his analysis of the workings of the legal systems in several countries in Latin America, Davies (43) concluded that the higher the level of legal process, the higher the delay expectation, the less consistency, honesty and fairness in the court procedures, and the greater the corruption. But it is interesting to note that almost all of the Latin American legal systems are more or less similar to the European ones, thus bringing us to a tentative conclusion that there must be something seriously wrong with the implementation that creates the disparities in their overall functionality. Davies (43) observes that even though delays in the process of judiciary may be a function of limited litigation process, corruption in the court system supported by extra-legal enforcements may as well hamper the business processes, hence corruption (Davies 43) He however warns that a simple reduction of the delays may not work efficiently if the political influence and judgments are not enforced (Davies 44).
Conclusion and Recommendations
The basic aspects of administrative reforms that took place in Brazil, Chile and Peru did not have a concrete impact on the war against corruption. The components of the reforms were identified as the degree to which the reform process has attempted to affect or have achieved certain impacts on, the various cross-sectional components of the public administration e.g. budget, control, civil service, procurement, organizational development, and many more. The next was an attempt to modifying these cross-sectional components. In all the highlighted aspects, there was some degree of achievements measurements in relation to streamlining the public administration
The reform agendas occurred in Brazil between 1995 and 1998 in the first Cradoso administration. This particular reform gave rise to a constitutional amendment supported by majority of congress. Contrary to Brazil is the Chile, which has been implementing an ongoing reform that gained impetus and scope overtime from 1990 all the way to 2003. The other is the reform initiative in Peru that took place between 1995 and 1997 (Lora 4). This reform took a different course as compared to that of Brazil and Chile in that it started from the concerns about the fiscal weight of the public sector payroll during the first Fujimori administration (1990-1995). However conflicts brought about by the political interests undermined the whole process and the reform process was sluggish and at times stalled.
Even though Brazil and Peru among other Latin American states currently perform relatively well in terms of economic growth, it is evident that the two nations are doing badly in their fight against corruption. This is because their performance is practically below the score line of 5 according to CPI scores by the Transparency International. Again fundamental economic observations also rule out the notion that performing well economically reflects a positive war against corruption, as both Brazil and Peru are not reflecting that traditional perception. As has been noted, weak institutions in Latin America are to blame for rampant corruption. For instance, TI outlines weak institutions, poor governance, and the excessive influence of private interest as the undermining factors in the fight against corruption and promotion of equitable distribution of resources (TI 1).
Surprisingly, against the backdrop of many nations and the international community pressing for press freedom, TI observes that many Latin American nations and governments are reversing the trend undoubtedly by proposing and passing legislative laws with the intention of gagging the media to avoid critical coverage of corruption cases (TI 1). It is also important to note the critical role that the civil society plays in the war against corruption and these may considerably hamper the war against corruption and increase the poverty index of these countries. Weakening theses two important public watchdog institutions may be tricky especially at a time when the public institutions that were said to be democratic are currently under critical scrutiny, and may subsequently render the reform implementation useless in the long run.
Generally, the fight against corruption will have a wholesome impact on the social status of all countries, with no restrictions to Latin American countries. It is therefore important to acknowledge that establishing stronger institutions, a proper legal system and thorough scrutiny of all regulatory frameworks will be the best way to stop or minimize corruption. Importantly, this can only be done where there is good political will to cultivate trust between the public and the public service sector.
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