‘The tendency of elected leaders to institute sham enquiry commissions whose only aim is to use delaying tactics and ultimately whitewash episodes of corruption from the proverbially short public memory only goes to prove the extent of their dishonesty’


“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”, are the words that made John Dalberg-Acton a literary immortal when he wrote them over a hundred years ago in a letter of indignation expressing his anguish in the context of authoritarian religious power in his time.

Be it religion, politics, bureaucracy or business, the tendency of power to corrupt those wielding it is universal and an unfortunate fact of life. But throughout history, saner, right thinking elements of society have evolved institutions and assiduously worked to build checks and balances in the distribution of power structures.

And it is when these institutions and checks and balances fall in danger of being subverted by individuals who wield power that the situation begins to turn into a crisis.

We have seen this happen too often in past decades and it still continues to happen in today’s world. Think Zimbabwe. Myanmar. North Korea. These are only three of the most extreme cases. There are legion of others that suffer varying degrees of abuse of power by their ruling regimes.

In more recent times, this malaise of the abuse of power by politicians is spreading across the Pacific Islands region. In the past few months, the media has been awash with reports of not just repressive measures against democratic institutions like the justice system and the media but also widespread corruption running through the rank and file of government and their bureaucracies.

Frequent reports like the theft of public funds from the ministry of finance, disappearing public property, vanishing aid money and the stark lack of accountability on the part of thick skinned politicians and even thicker skinned bureaucrats are any nation’s greatest shame.

The tendency of elected leaders to institute sham enquiry commissions whose only aim is to use delaying tactics and ultimately whitewash episodes of corruption from the proverbially short public memory only goes to prove the extent of their dishonesty.

Studies by international organisations have been repeatedly pointing out that systemic corruption in the body politic of many Pacific Islands nations is severely constricting development. It seems to be more pronounced in the larger, better performing and faster growing economies of the region. Think Papua New Guinea. Fiji. The Solomon Islands.

A definite correlation between natural resources rich, higher growth economies and corruption in the ranks of their governments and bureaucracies is as clear as daylight.

And the questions are endless: How else does one explain the alarmingly widening gulf between the rate of growth of the gross domestic product of a country and the rate of growth of the poverty of its people? How is it that a country like PNG, the very beacon of economic growth in the region growing over the past several years at five percent—twice that of the rest of the region—fails to trickle even a fraction of that earned wealth down to the grassroot levels?

Why are the common people in countries like PNG and the Solomon Islands unable to benefit from the earnings from the exploitation of natural resources that indeed belong to them collectively? Why is healthcare so poor in these countries? Why are women and children’s health statistics plummeting according to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals yardsticks?

Why are more youngsters dropping out of schools? Why is there an alarming rise in domestic violence? Why is HIV/AIDS growing at such a phenomenal pace? And how come the politicians, their minions and the bureaucrats are getting wealthier by each passing year?

Another dead giveaway of how deeply corrupt a government or a regime is, is the alacrity with which it suppresses the voice of dissent. Power-crazy, corrupt politicians and bureaucrats see even the slightest whiff of dissent as something that is to be urgently nipped in the bud.

It is therefore not hard to see the poor regard the governments of these countries—elected or otherwise—have for the media. Reports of corruption emanating from these countries have kept pace with reports of the abuse of democratic institutions and particularly the media from these very countries. In fact, in more recent weeks, the senior most political leaders of these countries have been openly critical, even abusive, of the media.

Once they jockey themselves into positions of power, these great leaders seem to lose all sense of proportion unable to see anywhere beyond their own narrow self interest, at once turning against the very constituency that put them there—their very own voting public. 

That indeed is the corrupting power of power: it makes despots of even the greatest of men. Which actually brings us to the second part of Lord Acton’s timeless dictum—one that is seldomly quoted but which rings as true as its first part. To quote him once again, this time in full: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”