Corruption Transparency International – TI (2018) defines corruption as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain.” Towards this end TI points out that corruption can be grouped into three distinct categories, i.e. political, petty, and grand. It essence, this classification is founded on either the sector affected or the total amount of money unaccounted for. It is important to note that contrary to the perception of many, corruption is not limited to countries considered to be poor. It also does occur in wealthy countries such as ours. As a matter of fact, within the last two decades, dozens of government officials have been found guilty of corrupt engagements including, but not limited to, obstruction of justice, violation of campaign funds laws, outright fraud, and conflict of interest.

Corruption comes at a huge cost to a nation such as ours. In that regard, therefore, the relevance of studying its impact, causes, and very nature cannot be overstated. Transparency International divides the cost of graft into 4 main categories. These are; environmental, social, economic, and political (TI, 2018). When environmental legislation as well as regulations are not implemented so as to protect against wanton destruction of environmental resources for gain, “the entire ecological systems are ravaged” (TI, 2018). Graft also has a very negative impact on the collective moral fabric of the society. Over time, people develop high levels of distrust for the political class – to the extent that any genuine attempt to rain in the vice is taken with a pinch of salt. It should, however, be noted that the economy happens to be hardest hit by corruption. In the words of Transparency International, corrupt public officials and their cronies divert “public resources in projects that will line their pockets rather than benefit communities, and prioritize high-profile projects such as dams, power-plants, pipelines, and refineries over less spectacular but more urgent infrastructure projects such as schools, hospitals and roads” (TI, 2018). Lastly, when it comes to the political impact of corruption, it should be noted that corruption effectively obstructs the effective admiration of justice and leads to rampant misuse of public office.

In the past, various strategies have been proposed to rein in corruption. It is, however, important to note that in most cases, strategies formulated in the war against corruption often fail to gain traction as a result of a poor ethics infrastructure (Powell, 2014). This is to say that the Office of Government Ethics does not necessarily have sufficient oversight capabilities to effectively slay the corruption dragon. Also, the current laws in place, as Rose-Ackerman...

In that regard, therefore, there is need for these concerns to be addressed even as various strategies are formulated to rein in corruption. In addition to ensuring that there is transparency in all spending of a political nature, there is also need to conduct regular lifestyle audits of government officials in an attempt to highlight discrepancies. Also, information about government undertakings and dealings ought to be made more accessible to members of the public.


In recent times, various high-profile corruption scandals have been uncovered. These include, but they are not limited to the IRS scandal in 2013, Clinton email scandal, and damning revelations by Edward Snowden regarding various corrupt dealings in the United States Government. Within the last five years, specifically during the Barack Obama administration, those who have offered to resign or have been asked to do so after being entangled in the corruption web include David Rivera, Chaka Fattah, and Aaron Schock (Rose-Ackerman and Palifka, 2016). When it comes to the IRS scandal in 2013, the Justice Department was interested in the clam that the IRS had unfairly targeted some formations and groups on the basis of their political inclinations. The said targeting was largely with regard to the deliberate delays in the approval of specific conservative groups’ applications. Further, the IRS was accused of sourcing for unnecessary information from the said formations so as to further frustrate their applications for tax exempt status. Following this particular scandal, several public officials tendered their resignations. These included Stephen Miller, Joseph H. Grant, and Lois Lerner (Rose-Ackerman and Palifka, 2016). Being at the helm of the IRS at the time, the three officials bore the greatest responsibility for the scandal. By the definition of corruption given by TI, this particular scandal qualifies as political corruption, which has got to do with the “manipulation of policies, institutions and rules of procedure in the allocation of resources and financing…” (TI, 2018).

The Clinton email scandal brings to the fore wanton disregard of clear procedures by a public official entrusted with federal resources. Although Hillary Clinton has since been cleared of criminal liability in this particular case, the FBI came to the loaded conclusion that Mrs. Clinton and her aides exercised extremely poor judgment in the manner in which they handled information that they were aware was classified (Rose-Ackerman and Palifka, 2016). Following the scandal, Mrs. Clinton pointed out that the main reason she…