Corruption in Civil Administration: Causes and Cures

The issue of corruption in the civil administration has gained importance in recent years; multiple anti‐corruption efforts have been initiated to solve the problem, however, desired success has not yet been achieved. The review of the causes of corruption reveals that two behavioural causes, namely the need for corruption and greed for corruption, are closely linked with other structural variables such as the pay structure, power of the officers, and the accountability mechanism. The research attempts to prove that proper balancing among the pay structure, power, and accountability might offer a sustainable solution to the problem. However, whether the solution is cost effective or not will largely depend on the government's success in developing proper ethics amongst public officials.