Fight Against Corruption

Corruption has long remained one of mankind’s major concerns – from ancient colonial time to present day modernism. While many are familiar with the term “corruption” and often associate it with greed, dishonesty, and fraud, its definition may range from economic, political, legal and moral/religious standpoints. Corruption is a significant hindrance to growth, equality and peace of any nation. From education to business, from health to sports, from transport to media, from security to customs, from infrastructure to justice, and more – corruption affects every nook and cranny of society.
According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of 2021, results reveal a rather stagnate effort against corruption worldwide as global average remains unchanged for the tenth year in a row, at 43 out of a possible 100 points (where results are given on a scale of 0 [highly corrupt] to 100 [very clean]). As touching Cameroon, which stand as the 144th least corrupt nation out of 180 countries, according to the 2021 CPI reported by Transparency International, there is an urgent need to accelerate the fight against corruption if we are to attain our shared vision 2035 of emergence. To imagine that this ranking is Cameroon’s best fit over the past five years is deplorable to say the least.

Building a World of Integrity

According to the World Bank, Cameroon’s high ranking by Transparency International CPI can be attributed to weak governance, which hinders its development and ability to attract investors. This is then translated to economic hardship driven mainly by shortage and increase of the prices of staple goods such as bread, wheat, and meat. The world bank group considers corruption a major challenge to achieving their goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity for the poorest 40 percent of people in developing countries, as corruption has a disproportionate impact on the poor and most vulnerable, increasing costs and reducing access to services, including health, education, and justice.

Actions

Several measures have been put in place by the government to save this ship among which was the creation of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC). This commission was established by decree no. 2006/088 on March 11, 2006 by the President of the republic, H.E. Paul Biya. Meanwhile, Cameroon’s Law no. 2016/007 of 12 July 2016 relating to the penal code criminalizes corruption, bribery, extortion, and bribery of foreign public officials - as corruption is punishable by a prison term of five years to life imprisonment, a fine and/or asset seizure. Other preventive measures like training of public officials who perform the functions of a manager or accountant of public funds have equally been employed.

Unfortunately, despite the many national, government, private and international initiatives to curb this scourge, corruptions seems to remain a daily reality in Cameroon. Yet, it would seem a possible way out of this shackles has been completely omitted – “the youths”. CAMPEACI believes that to effectively eradicate this cankerworm in our society, the youths need to be implicated in the purging process [not merely as onlookers but as active participators] as they represent the future of the nation. It’s therefore on this basis that CAMPEACI seeks to engage secondary school students through a national ‘mindset shift’ campaign to avoid anti-values and corrupt practices to be handed to the next generation of Cameroonians. For a better tomorrow where corruption is almost absent, seeds of sustainable anti-corruption values must be sown today via the younger generation.