Internalizing Corruption: A Radical Rethink for Africa’s Public Sector Reform

By Peter Mbile

Regulations as Instruments of Control, Not Governance

In many African countries, public administration is governed less by service delivery and more by a dense thicket of regulations. These rules—though ostensibly designed to promote good governance, efficiency, and accountability—are frequently deployed as tools of manipulation, control, and capture. Rather than facilitate progress, they often obstruct it, creating a hostile environment for creativity, entrepreneurship, and private initiative.

Despite the presence of technically trained personnel within these bureaucracies, administrative systems are mired in delays, fault-finding, obstructionism, and widespread rent-seeking behavior. Regulations have become veils for personal gain, not societal progress.

The Economics of Entrenched Corruption

Behavior change campaigns and institutional reforms have largely failed to stem this tide. One major reason: corruption is incentivized and reinforced by status, impunity, and systemic complicity. The agents of public administration—civil servants with high-ranking titles—frequently display ostentatious lifestyles, fund massive personal investments, and wield arbitrary power.

A 2024 report by Cameroon’s National Anti-Corruption Commission (CONAC) ranked the Ministries of Finance, Commerce, Forestry, Territorial Administration, Lands, and even Education among the top ten most corrupt institutions in a pool of over 30 ministries. Notably, these are the very ministries that should be catalyzing growth, innovation, and opportunity for young people and women, particularly those aged 18 to 35—the demographic expected to drive Africa’s economic future.

Corruption as an Unpriced Externality

In theory, better wages, stronger enforcement, and moral persuasion should curb corruption. But the reality suggests otherwise. These approaches underestimate the extent to which corruption is not a mere behavioral flaw, but a systemic function—one embedded within the operational DNA of many administrations. As such, corruption acts as an unpriced externality—its cost unpredictable, destabilizing, and disproportionately punitive to the most vulnerable.

In this light, a provocative alternative must be considered: internalize corruption as a legitimate transaction cost. Just as taxes, logistics, or regulatory compliance are factored into business planning, perhaps the reality of corrupt payments should be formalized, made transparent, and priced.

Though counterintuitive, this approach could strip corruption of its arbitrariness, restore predictability, and enable young entrepreneurs, especially women and informal actors, to plan, invest, and grow. It would no longer be a destabilizing shock, but a calculated risk—subject to audit, visibility, and eventually, reform.

The Case for a Pragmatic Rethink

Examples already exist, albeit informally. In sectors like customs clearance in Central Africa, actors build in unofficial fees as part of their logistics planning, allowing transactions to proceed despite institutional rot. Similarly, in land registration, intermediaries often act as informal facilitators—streamlining what would otherwise be an endless bureaucratic labyrinth.

Rather than condemning these realities outright, we should study and reimagine them. If corruption cannot be eradicated in the short term, then perhaps it must be governed—made visible, formal, capped, and eventually taxed back into public service.

Call to Action: From Denial to Design

Corruption, in its current form, is both immoral and economically ruinous. But denial has failed. It is time for policymakers, civil society, and development partners to design mechanisms that confront corruption as a structural feature—not a moral aberration. We must:

• Quantify and formalize the hidden costs of doing business in Africa’s public sector;

• Pilot regulated informal facilitation frameworks in high-impact sectors;

• Create legal windows for transitional governance models that bridge informal realities with formal reform;

• Empower youth and women entrepreneurs by protecting them from unpredictable rent-seeking through transparency-based protection mechanisms.

  
  

Until the externality of corruption is internalized, Africa’s transformation will remain stifled by an unspoken, yet ever-present cost—unacknowledged, unregulated, and fundamentally unfair.

Peter Mbile is an Environmental Management Specialist and commentator on Society and Politics. He holds a PhD in Forest Policy and Economics He is based in Yaoundé, Cameroon