The confidentiality that shrouds defence and security makes the sector more vulnerable to the misappropriation of resources than others. As a result, the defence sector can act as a concentrator of corrupt behaviour in government. Funds can be siphoned from the sector by the ruling elite to finance election campaigns or for personal gain. In this way, corruption in the defence sector can keep a corrupt infrastructure of middlemen, accountants, and lawyers in business.

The government exists to serve its people, and defence and security establishments to protect them. When defence and security establishments are corrupt, the integrity of the government is undermined as leaders abuse the power entrusted in them for personal enrichment. The government loses legitimacy, public trust, and often fails to fulfill its primary aim. Because of the high importance of defence and security, corruption in this sector has a wide-ranging impact on the government as a whole. 

A graphic illustration of the 'concentrator' phenomenon is presented in the report by former Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics of the Kenyan Government, John Githongo, who labeled the defence sector “the last refuge of the corrupt in Africa”. Focusing on the bogus security sector contracts of the Anglo Leasing scandal and the lack of answers to Githongo's questions regarding a navy ship purchase, the report highlighted the abuse of the security sector as a conduit for corrupt payments. These events prompted Githongo's resignation.

Case Study: Uganda 

The hypothesis that corruption in the defence sector acts to proliferate violent conflict when it becomes entrenched in a security environment is difficult to verify, given the multifarious situations in which conflict exists. Nevertheless, experts working in the security sector in Africa have put their own experience behind this theory, and TI-DSP has spoken with several such practitioners.  One example of corruption entrenching conflict and destroying governmental integrity is Uganda, where corruption has had a devastating impact on Uganda’s security establishments in the context of the protracted war in the country’s North against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) – an impact that is likely to have exacerbated and prolonged the conflict in several ways.

The first is through the main players in the war having a corrupt interest in the conflict’s continuation.  President Yoweri Museveni ensured the loyalty of his generals, including his own brother, through allowing corruption at the highest levels of the armed forces.  Those fighting the rebellion, then, had a clear conflict of interest in that they had a material stake in the rebellion’s proliferation.

A second factor is the extent to which funds that should have been spent on, for example, necessary military equipment or training, were wasted through corruption.  A third and related issue is the armed forces’ reception and use of faulty or unnecessary equipment as a result of corruption.  A prominent example is the junk helicopter scandal, centred on Museveni’s brother Salim Saleh.  Saleh reportedly received a commission of US $800,000 when his own company purchased non-functioning military helicopters.  Both of these factors demonstrate that corruption has prevented the armed forces from getting the proper equipment.

Ugandan officials are currently working with international stakeholders to improve procurement, and these efforts show promise in curbing some types of defence corruption.

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