ABSTRACT
In practice, corruption within the bureaucracy is a problem of both substance and scale: civil servants’ and politicians’ accounts of political interference and of other activities which are clearly synonymous with corruption, are too frequent and consistent to reasonably suggest otherwise. Corruption is also concentrated in certain posts within agencies: those which carry responsibility for financial management, or for constant or frequent contact with public, or for the implementation of projects funded by government but tendered out to private companies. Through its various manifestations the circumvention of rules, process and divisions of authority helps to initiate or reinforce other notable features of the bureaucracy—over-conformity, a proliferation of agencies, and the layering of rules and process. Pressure for over-conformity is particularly severe in those agencies responsible for revenue collections. Over-conformity is, perversely, a concomitant of an emphasis on personal trust at the highest levels of government.
