It is widely believe that institutional corruption in any country stems from poor management and planning, and not from a lack of natural resources and other key ingredients that countries abound with. Corruption results from abuse by individuals in government and private institutions for their personal interests, and the misuse of their administrative authority to achieve their ends, particularly if supervisory controls are absent or weak.
Today, many government departments in the Arab world suffer from poor planning and corruption, according to the data of Transparency International in Berlin. Most Arab countries did not record any improvement in their perceptions of corruption. Many countries fell in the 2022 rankings, while there are several Arab countries at the bottom of the ranking.
Some experts believe that as a result of attracting cadres who are not well-qualified in their responsibilities and work, they work in any way to maintain their status, which helps the spread of nepotism in administrative and financial issues. Thus those departments flounder in the process of planning and decision-making.
Everyone is aware that corruption is a multifaceted criminal phenomenon with negative effects on moral values, political life, and economic and social aspects. Transparency International believes that corruption is the abuse of power for private benefit, while other organizations describe corruption as the misuse of a position for private gain. Corruption is considered one of the most dangerous negative phenomena in any institution if adequate measures are not taken to deter it. It has implications for people’s daily lives and interests, and has a strong impact on official centers and institutions in vital areas such as education, health, construction, production, and others.
This calls for civil society organizations, regulatory departments, and institutions tasked with protecting public funds to highlight these issues in order to mitigate corruption and strengthen oversight. Suitable laws should be enacted to hold accountable anyone who has misused public money. It is also imperative that financial and administrative audit and regulatory departments in the Arab world should ensure that only individuals of integrity and probity should be in the leadership and senior administrative positions of such public institutions.
Over the past years, the phenomenon of corruption has attracted the attention of many researchers and workers in civil society institutions and the media. Many opinions have been put forward to limit this phenomenon and punish the corrupt. Workers in the fields of economics, security, law, political science and sociology were also keen to follow up the issues resulting from the phenomenon of corruption and how to reduce it due to its bad effects on human societies.
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