Corruption has long been recognized as a pervasive issue in Liberia, impeding progress and hindering the nation's development. Despite efforts to combat it, corruption continues to undermine governance, erode public trust, and divert vital resources away from essential services.
The power dynamics in a politic system is quite demanding and creates an avenue where representatives involve themselves in a classic circle of competition in hopes of election and reelection. Their actions while in elected positions impact education, health, business, and other general welfare sectors the citizens depend on, when corruption occurs during these circles, citizens suffer. In this article, we explore the detrimental effects of political corruption on Liberia's development trajectory and the urgent need for system reform.
Dreadful Impacts of Corruption
Classic perspective of corruption from a museum of political corruption (2024) defines it as the act of stealing, bribery/payoffs, extortion etc. by an authority or government official for personal gain. Corruption at its best impedes the effectives of societal growth prospects, environmental development, the rules of law, and public trust in government (TI 2024). Using position to lure private businesses/services to one's personal gains by influence of public office is prevalent in Liberia ex: Voice of Africa captured instances recorded by the Weah led government on top officials from the ministry of state to the prosecutors' office" had habitually involved themselves in bribes for boycotting legislation, and misuse of government funding for pocket gains (September 2022). And few other instances of public concerned continue to hit the media from time to time.
Although not adequately, the nation has sought to give the public a response to this hot-button issue, Liberia has taken to some level to combat corruption. A major achievement acquired during Madam Ellen Johnson's administration in the fight against corruption is the establishment of the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission -LACC and subsequently a National Anti-Corruption Strategy (Marie 2021). This was an active effort, yet more needs to be done to aggressively tackle the situation.
Corruption has created a syndrome of laziness and unproductiveness: citizens want to be patronized even before they offer services, or they want to pay for acquisitions that require work. Using raw-data collection methodology, a comparative survey in 2023 by Afrobarometer researchers registered that tax officials are most widely perceived as corrupt amongst key public officials, the police, the representatives, the presidency, the senate, judges, and magistrates. This puts Liberia amongst the most declining countries in the fight against systemic corruption internationally according to the statics.
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Two potential solutions to the corruption problem could be: a) the digitizing of all government institutions work portals especially posts such as financial/audit agencies and policy houses, b) upgrading public records to include regular publications of state holders' assets for accountability before, during, and after election terms. These approaches may not rid Liberia of corruption completely, but they might be the aggressive approach needed to mitigate the degree its currently seen by discouraging public manipulation and encouraging transparency at large.
Large scale problems such as corruption are best tackled with transparency and serious efforts to mitigate it, some earlier administrations in past Liberia did not score progressive points in achieving this result, hence, the problem persist. When the institutions and structures established for growth and developmental facilitations in a country does not ensure the people access to enjoying said growth, trust in leadership spikes and people start searching for unguided solutions to their problems. Corruption has long undermined Liberia's democracy and its economy, by harboring principles in its public sector/governing processes for years, this robs the Liberian people of stability and societal development. Implementation of some aggressive approaches to fight corruption publicly will achieve some level of mitigation and set the nation's development prospects on a good trajectory.
