Bringing Transparency To Africa's Public Sector Using Blockchain Technology

Corruption in Africa’s public sector

‘Transparency’ and ‘African public sector’ are terms that are mostly used together to contradict each other - much like ‘light’ and ‘darkness’. The level of distrust in African institutions both by Africans and non-Africans is very high as over time, the public sector has become epitome of bribery, corruption and extreme greed.

This is also reflected in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (2016) where among the top 20 countries perceived to have their public sectors as being highly corrupt, 12 of them (or 60%) are African countries while among the top 30 nations with the least corruption, none are African nations.

Although corruption comes in several forms, in Africa’s public sector, the two most popular forms of corruption are bribery and embezzlement and despite efforts over the years by a (minute) number of African leaders as well as well as cries by the masses to rid the continent of the corruption that is responsible to a large extent for the dwarfing of economic growth in the continent, it is almost totally being accepted as a way of life in the public sector.

One of the ways to effectively fight corruption (as has been proven in countries perceived as being least corrupt) is by ensuring transparency in the public sector - something which has hugely been lacking across the continent.

Blockchain explained

While the term “blockchain” has been mostly used (by non-crytocurrency enthusiasts) interchangeably with the quite popular digital currency, bitcoin. While this is understandable given that it (Bitcoin) has the first-mainstream-mover advantage over other blockchain applications and tokens, there are far wider uses of blockchains. Also, there are several other blockchains apart from the Bitcoin blockchain.

To simplify things, a blockchain is simply a public ledger containing records which are accessible by the public and cannot be edited so once can refer to blockchain(s) as a write-once-read-only technology. The bitcoin blockchain for example records all transactions on the bitcoin network and these transaction records cannot be edited or deleted and are available to the public, all day, everyday.

Using blockchain technology to ensure transparency in Africa’s public sector

Having explained what the blockchain technology is, its application to ensure that the African public sector is transparent in all its dealings (contracts and the likes) is very possible, cost effective and will help greatly in the fight against corruption.

Government contracts, detailed expenditures, revenue, budgets, contracts, notaries and all other forms of governmental financial dealings which are usually shrouded in secrecy or highly manipulated to enable embezzlement can be made public without the risk of manipulation of whatsoever form or the ‘disappearance’ of such files.

DiguSign for example, is a service built on the Digibyte blockchain allows for this specific use of the blockchain technology (alongside other use cases) where documents can be uploaded and validated on its blockchain network and made available worldwide, always. There are several other blockchains applications built specifically for this purpose.

This would push for (more) accountability on the part of the government as well as raise interest in the masses who have learnt over time to give up on ever expecting true accountability in their countries’ public sectors.

A sober reflection on Africa relationship with innovation

While Africans are daily opening up to as well as as creating new innovative technology across the continent (with Kenya’s M-Pesa being the most known and used), the same cannot be said of public sectors/governments across the continent.

Blockchain technology is highly innovative and exciting but its application in Africa public sectors not just to ensure transparency, but the many other several use cases might never see the light of day or at least not anytime soon given the lackadaisical attitude of governments in the continent towards new innovations. Also, the fact that blockchain can potentially cut ‘income’ to the kleptomaniacs in the public system would make it a hard sell to the benefactors of corruption.