Introduction
The constitution requires accountability for all elected and appointed government officials. It means that all government officials must discharge their constitutional duties with strict adherence to the law. As far as leadership is concerned, accountability aids in eradicating the time and energies used on disrupting events and other fruitless conduct. Regarding this, governments should strive to make sure all public servants are accountable and all Society members. When the government makes people responsible for their actions, they are teaching them to value their work. When accountability is realized within the community, it increases the general public's skills and confidence. This paper's main objective is to identify societal problems that undermine accountability and transparency in public institutions, as well as the possible solutions to the problem. Corruption is the main societal problem that undermines government projects. The funds allocated for these projects end up in a few individuals' pockets, leading to underdevelopment and poor service delivery in the public sector. All possible remedies to the vice of corruption will be discussed deeply in the course of this paper.
For instance, accountability goes hand in hand with transparency. Transparency promotes accountability by ensuring that any kind of information that can be applied to gauge the government's performance and protection of public resources against any possible mismanagement of resources is available (Moene & Søreide 2016). In that logic, transparency helps to weigh civil servants' accountability, which means that those in authority can be held accountable for their activities. In public organizations, accountability promotes public confidence, which is the basis upon which civic organizations' legitimacy is erected and is vital for upholding social unity. Public trust is significant since it increases the confidence of investors and traders. One of the primary responsibilities of any public agency or civil servants is always to be accountable to the people they serve. Nevertheless, the biggest problem which hinders transparency and accountability, as discussed earlier in this paper, is corruption. Fraud is the fraudulent or deceitful demeanor by those in authority, which characteristically involves taking or giving bribes. Bribery is also any form of deceit or felonious act committed by an individual or party assigned a position or authority. It involves obtaining illegitimate benefits or misuse of power for personal gain. The most common causes of corruption are political and financial situation, professional morals and principles, behaviors, customs, traditions, and demography.
Impacts of Corruption on The Society
Corruption erodes the trust the members of the public have in the public sector. It also wastes revenue that could otherwise be used to carry out development projects. It weakens the independence of organizations and processes and alters strategies and priorities. Corruption damages governments' legality and results in a forfeiture of public support and confidence in agencies. Moreover, fraud leads to a low stimulus for innovation. It is because there is little confidence in the independent institutions, which can easily be manipulated. In nations where corruption has been deep-rooted, investors tend to shy away from investing their funds in such states. This leads to slow economic growth where social amenities are in poor condition.
Similarly, corruption destroys a countries reputation from money lending institutions such as the world bank. It means that such states lack sources of funds to carry out their development projects. As a result, development projects remain stalled for a long time, denying citizens their fundamental rights.
Social amenities such as hospitals lack proper medication due to the loss of funds allocated to purchase medicines. Moreover, corrupt activities are likely to harm the health care s capability to convey excellent health care to the public. According to Harvard University's research, high levels of fraud diminish populations, increase discrimination, and cause health status to decline, particularly the most susceptible groups like the disabled, the aged, and the sick (Sommersguter et al., 2020). As a result of the rampant corruption within the health sector, people lose lives that could be saved. Due to the embezzlement of funds, hospitals continue to lack essential equipment that can be used by medics to save lives. Because of nepotism, unqualified doctors are hired, contributing to the loss of patients' lives due to a lack of proper skills and expertise needed to handle both minor and major ailments. It is at the hands of these incompetent medics where expectant mothers continue to lose their lives and that of their unborn babies. Doctors who got their jobs via corruption maneuvers are usually careless and clumsy to handle delicate health issues like delivery and surgery. Owing to incompetence and carelessness, they eventually end up causing deaths, which can easily be prevented.
Bribery contributes to poor education results. The diversion of school resources raids institutions of their properties, while nepotism and racism can put unreserved tutors in class. As a result, these teachers deliver poor quality education and destroy innocent learners' future (Tourish & Craig 2020). Poor quality education means that a country produces inexperienced intellectuals, kills professionalism, and leads to poor service delivery in public institutions. Corruption leads to insecurity and lawlessness within Society. The elected public servants keep on stealing public funds for their benefits, which leads to uneven distribution of resources. Lack of development projects leads to high rates of poverty in the community. In such a condition, people struggle so much to make both ends meet and feed their families. People actively look for jobs, but jobs are very scarce, and the ones available require one to give out some money or property as a form of bribe to get employment. In such a scenario, people tend to lose hope in life and end up in crimes as the only livelihood source. High crime rates within any given nation scare away investors, thus leading to underdevelopment.
Corruption contributes to the increase of hatred in Society. For instance, many graduates remain unemployed but unqualified individuals give out a handout to obtain a job they are not qualified to do. This contributes to hatred within the Society since people perceive it unfair to employ unqualified and incompetent individuals. In contrast, some talented individuals suffer even though they have struggled a lot to attain their educational qualifications (Lyrio et al., 2018). These intellectuals feel betrayed and offended, which leads to hatred of particular government officials who give or receive bribes. Due to hunger, crimes can be committed by public members to a specific corrupt individual, which leads to a massive shed of blood. As a result of corruption, education losses its value because of the availability of a possible shortcut to success. Fraud leads to lousy governance since individuals rise to power using several kinds of mischiefs (Abidin et al., 2020). Moreover, corrupt individuals use their handouts to manipulate citizens to vote for them, after which they end up using their tenure in the office doing nothing but stealing public funds. At times, these individuals fail to clinch power during elections; they use their influence to rig elections, leading to massive chaos from followers of different political affiliations.
Possible Remedies to Corruption
In the fight against graft, Society should primarily comprehend the different types of fraud. The Society and the governments should combine their energies by setting stable and autonomous audit and impartiality organizations, which will help fight graft without impunity or intimidation. Concerning this, there is a need to set aside a well-financed judiciary and an oversight agency to field fraud-related cases (Lyrio et al., 2018. Moreover, the government should be a frontrunner in the fight against corruption by generating an atmosphere that empowers a responsible and robust culture and an administrations that provide oversight of state agencies.
The government, in collaboration with members of the public, needs to join their efforts against corruption. The vice stops medicines and medications from reaching the sick, halts institutions from being constructed, leads to poor infrastructure, and drains public reserves. As far as the fight against corruption is concerned, there are diverse ways of eliminating corruption within Society. However, the essential tool is education (Nascimento et al., 2019). There is an urgent need to fix the education system and incorporate a curriculum that educates learners on the impacts of corruption on Society. The education system will create a new culture built on integrity, accountability, and transparency. Learners will grow up with high ethics and principles, which entirely change the community's entire philosophies and corruption notions. Education also produces reliable intellectuals with strong ethics, which helps root out corruption, particularly when they lead institutions like the judiciary.
Additionally, enacting strict laws against corrupt malpractices is an excellent remedy. Corruption itself is a liability and an enemy of development. For this reason, there is an urgent need to create laws that can be used by the judiciary to deal with corrupt individuals and cartels ruthlessly. Such laws will help the government recover stolen funds from unscrupulous individuals. There should be laws enacted to compel public servants to declare their assets before assuming and state office. Asset announcement requires civic officers to pronounce their proceeds, liabilities, and monetary welfares. The act of asset declaration will improve the public and external stakeholders' assurance in the government's truthfulness and good leadership. Various researches illustrate that an asset announcement helps confirm leaders do not misuse their authority for personal advantage. According to Dauti (2017), the pronouncement of wealth must not only be done occasionally and held in reserve by a real autonomous agency, but it is similarly appropriate to have criminological bookkeeping specialists and detectives monitor the properties periodically. The state should set aside an asset-vetting organization to determine the number of properties public workers are expected to have based on their job groups and salaries, years worked, and their current and past remunerations. Asset declaration must comprise those of their partners, children, and immediate family affiliates, along with any commercial interest or organizations they might be part of. Besides this, the government should carry compulsory lifestyle audits to all public servants after a given period while in office. This philosophy will help to determine the integrity of those leaders who are entrusted with public funds.
In the long run, raising awareness against corruption is among the most suitable remedies. People can perform this initiative by choosing their favorite sports to participate in. By running against fraud to scoring a goal for accountability, anybody can raise his Society's bribery consciousness. Alternatively, protests against corruption by the public and other non-governmental organizations can help push the government to take action against corrupt officials (Ionescu, 2018). Using this method, residents and other groups can unite to demonstrate opposition against individual acts within the community.
