DOES CORRUPTION CAUSE POVERTY?
Corruption promotes poverty and inequality which in turn breeds discontent and instability. Statistically, for example, close to 50% percent of the Kenyan population lives in absolute poverty. This figure is concentrated among subsistence farmers, pastoralists, and people without any education and unskilled workers. Corruption is an important cause of poverty because it promotes unfair distribution of income and inefficient use of resources. By the late 1990s, it was estimated that 25 percent of Kenyans cannot meet their minimum daily calorie requirements even if they concentrated all their spending on food and a World Bank report in 1996 indicated that the top 10 percent of Kenya’s population earned 47 percent of the national income. According to the same report, these inequalities were second only to those reported for Brazil. The political implications of sharp economic inequalities are sometimes even more potent than those of poverty when considered alone as an issue. Especially vu
