1. Low Pay scales and Wages
- Most of the employees in the government sector are paid low wages and salaries.
- Hence some employees revert to corruption for more financial benefits.
2. Low Job opportunities.
- This is another cause of corruption.
- Due to the lack of job opportunities, many people opt to bribe authorities to get a job offer.
- They readily pay large amounts for job offers to higher officials or politicians.
3. Lack of Strict and fast punishments
- Even if someone is found guilty or even caught red-handed by the anti-corruption officials or media, the convicts get less punishment.
- First, they will be suspended for a few months or weeks and then re-posted to another location with the same job grade and pay. Or the guilty will take up the case to the courts and get bail and delay the punishments.
- So this means the official who did the corrupt practice is given a free license to continue his practice.
- If there are strict provisions to permanently fire the corrupt employees or else punishments of several years in imprisonment, then the corruption will decrease to a large extent.
4. Lack of fear of a bad reputation
- If a person is corrupt or has done some unacceptable misconduct, they have to be avoided and not be respected.
- But currently, those with corruption and other offense-related history are given prominent positions like members of congress or even higher posts.
- Instead of being disrespected, they are respected. This emboldens others to be corrupt.
5. Lack of Public Unity
- The public openly criticizes corruption, but interestingly there is no unity among the public to stop corruption.
- If a person wants to get his done his work, he gets it done by means of corruption where possible and then later criticizes the corrupt official.
- If the public stands united against corruption so that no one is ready to offer bribes to get their work done, then the corrupt officials will have no other option but to work in a corruption-free manner.
- During the election, politicians try to lure the people by offering money and other things.
- If these politicians win and get power, they try to regain 10 to 100 times the amount spent in the process.
6. Lack of transparency in affairs and deals
- Many appointments or seat allocation processes like education, contracts, job, and employee income reports (wealth possession) lack transparency.
- This lack of transparency in the processes provides loopholes for corruption.
7. Lack of Independent detective agency
- Lack of an independent detective agency to investigate with full power and freedom to expose corrupt individuals.
- The existing agencies are under the control of either the government or the armies and are not free to work.
- Hence anyone who commits an offense will not be afraid of the investigation as they can escape from it by taking the help of those controlling them.
8. Lack of state funding for elections
- State funding for polls is the best way to beat corruption.
- Political parties receive party donations through the public or businesses and will not disclose them to the fullest. In doing so, they encourage corruption.
- They collect massive amounts from industrialists with a promise to help when in power.
- The presence of state funding can abolish party donations and minimize corruption.
9. The option of many political parties
- In a democracy, anyone can establish a political party.
- So there are chances for the corruption of many political parties in the country.
- If a political party wins, the party members will desire to expand the party all over the country.
- To do so, they need enough financial reserves. Once they come into power, they opt for corrupt means to make the wealth necessary to expand the party.
10. Lack of enough powers for the judiciary.
- The election commission cannot ban a politician from contesting if they make a mistake or do not comply with the rules during the poll campaign (like distributing freebies or money to people).
- Similarly, the judicial system has low options to punish someone who is found to be guilty.
