Safeguards against corruption are needed more than ever in an emergency
Even in normal times, 10%-25% of all money spent on procurement globally is lost to corruption
The huge humanitarian crisis posed by the outbreak of Covid-19 has seen governments taking a broad range of fiscal and monetary policy measures to save lives and safeguard the economy. A number of economic stimulus packages have been suggested and rolled out by governments to mitigate the pandemic’s vast socioeconomic consequences — such as interest rate cuts, loans and asset purchases (quantitative easing), the establishment of specific lines of credit for financial institutions, grants, unemployment benefits, and tax relief arrangements.
While governments are scrambling to disburse funds quickly to achieve these goals, some seem to have found an opportunity to siphon funds off for private gain. Human greed is such that these well-intentioned efforts by governments have, for some, opened a bonanza of opportunities for corruption. African governments routinely promise to deal with this scourge, but as the recent blanket and food parcel scandals show, the challenge remains as d...
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