Business is often harmed by corruption. There are many types of corruption. One definition of corruption is fraud or illegal behavior or action, particularly by officials or police officers. It could also be described as an inducing someone to commit fraud or other irregular acts, such as bribery. Others might say that corruption is an attempt to deceive or to evade the truth.
The scale of corruption has been exposed by recent corruption scandals. These include the federal reserve-ponzi scheme in which the U.S. bought up substantial amounts of U.S. Treasury debt. Other examples include the estimate that President Muhammadu Buhari made of $150 billion missing from Nigeria during the past ten decades. In this paper, however, I will be focusing on Kenya’s corruption situation. Transparency international’s 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), placed Kenya 139th among 176 countries. The score was 27. It was tied with Pakistan and Azerbaijan. It is the most corrupt country. This ranking was maintained for five years. The score for Kenya in the years 2013-2015, 2015-2016 was 27, 25, 25, 26, and 26. Below is an illustration of CPI 2017 scores. The information shown above shows that Kenya’s corruption situation has remained relatively stable over the past few years, with scores between 25-27. But the Gross Domestic Product of Kenya (GDP) could have a completely different story. The country’s USD billions in 2017 GDB reached a new record of 74.94. This has been increasing over time, as shown below. You could argue that corruption has not had a profound impact on the finances. Is this true? Is it possible that other countries around the world are faring more well because they have less political corruption?
