Corruption II - Are you a "Pain in the patootie", or just "Pure evil"?

Friends and relatives (and also a few external readers now – Welcome!): First of all, thanks for all the kind comments on my last post, and for keeping all the harsh ones to yourselves. This is the final post in my two-part series on corruption, before I move onto other, possibly more interesting topics. In my last post, I shared some personal stories and also sighted some well-known institutional efforts to battle corruption. Institutional efforts are important, because they are highly actionable, and create work for managers and consultants like yours truly. But the key take away from my previous post is that by and large, they do not seem to be working. At the end of the day, we need to address the demand or individual side of things, which entails changing behavior across all of us in a massively bottom-up manner. This post attempts to think through the individual side going further than just sighting original sin as that never ending predicament, the cause for all our ills. By the end of this post, you will have a segmentation, a structured way to think through who stands where, on the individual side of the corruption landscape, and a few interesting but mostly absurd stories around how I have seen each of these segments in play.

Exhibit A outlines a framework, which conceptualizes the individual side of corruption. At the extreme right of the spectrum, in Category V, we have “Pure evil”, those we most commonly associate with “creating demand” for corruption. A little bit towards the left, we have the “Poor fellas”, in category II, who are also a very common animal. They seem to be hopelessly stuck. Category I, on the extreme left includes the old “Principled pain in the patootie”, someone who will stubbornly stand up against corruption, often at great personal risk or inconvenience. Category III, “Good for bad reasons”, somewhere in the middle is a selfish version of Category I. And finally, Category IV, also in the middle, “Bad for good reasons”, is a more questionable version of Category II.

We obviously cannot be slotted into a single category across all our encounters. Through each experience we may find ourselves in a different category. In my Friday immigration office encounter, I fell firmly into Category III. As you all learnt (if you read my previous post), I was battling corruption just for kicks. For me, the incident was nothing more than a high stakes showdown, and for those of you who know me, know very well that I really enjoy a highly charged game of Poker. Immigration officer was betting as if he had pocket rockets (Two Aces – the best cards one can get on the draw). We had nothing but Benson still engaged in some trash talk. Immigration guy folded and we took the pot. So familiar. So adrenaline charged. So much raw pleasure.

In 1986, when I was born, they shaved my head and found the number 666 on the back. They subsequently defanged me, and by 2008 I was able to graduate to category IV, falling into temptation when the Motorway Police officer issued me a fine for over speeding (see previous post). Over the years, I have found myself in both categories IV and V. In the 7^th grade, at my secondary school in Islamabad, Pakistan, I was part of the organizing team for a school charity funfair. Our team was given the mandate to manage the “Jail”. Now, the “Jail” is the most fun stall in any funfair. One could pay 20 rupees (about 50 US cents back in those days) to put anyone they wished behind bars, which was a sheet of plastic with black vertical lines drawn on it with a permanent marker, guarded by a couple of 12-year old wardens. In order to get out of jail, the person behind bars, or the plastic sheet, had to pay another 20 rupees. All the money collected of course went to charity.

As I was considered the biggest geek and most innocent little kid in class, I was made the treasurer for this stall. I prepared myself for the evening, bringing out a register to maintain meticulous records of who was jailed and how much cash was collected. What ensued, however, was not what I had in mind. My friends, some of my best friends in fact, finding that it was no fun just to administer this service playing by the actual rules, went out and started catching people randomly and putting them in jail. A simple “public service” turned into a game of tag, where we were literally running around catching kids, physically dragging them into our jail, placing them behind the sheet, and extorting 20 rupees out of them to let them go, only to catch them again, moments later. There were so many people in jail that my record keeping systems broke down. My math teacher, who was in-charge of over-seeing our stall was worried about the huge pot of money we were collecting, and decided to take over the treasury function. She was worried that we would appropriate some of the booty for ourselves, and she was probably right. That experience continues to account for 80% of my dented confidence to this very day, the fact that I was given responsibility but was not able to handle it. What she wasn’t worried about though, and what was so apparent, was that we were not playing fair. The next morning we got hailed as heroes in the school assembly for running the stall which collected the highest amount of money.

A similar thing went down in 12^th grade, again in Islamabad, Pakistan. I was leading an effort to sell tickets for a charity concert which I also helped organize and had a team of sales agents, some of my good friends, helping me. Lo and behold, some money goes missing. We were all big boys now, so this time around, I made them collectively figure out what went missing. They all chipped in to make up the difference. The point I am trying to make here is that corruption is so ingrained from such an early age in Pakistan that kids are regularly falling into Category V by the time they are 11 or 12 years old. And we are talking about some of the best schools in the country. If the elite are so corrupt from such an early age, it does not surprise me that our cricketers are match fixing, and our politicians are being encouraged to steal from the National Treasury, because “we the people are happy to provide to our leaders”.

One of the most shocking cases of student corruption involves a friend and former colleague, who attended a Prestigious Pakistani college. As the story goes, this person held a senior role in Student Government, and was nearly expelled for embezzling student funds. What is so shocking is that this person is both extremely smart and highly successful in his career, but so devoid of integrity. Now, I have been part of student organizations at my college in the UK, where these sorts of incidents were absolutely unthinkable. Sure there was a budget process, and there was an expense process, and both those processes worked well, but embezzlement? By the time we graduate from college in Pakistan, at age 22, we have already spent at least 10 years in Category V. When some of us enter the civil service, the interview process actually tests whether or not we are capable of handling Category V. Even someone in Category IV is an absolute outcast: “He sometimes doesn’t take bribes? What a looser!”.

And then there are Categories I and II. My second police check-point stop in Nairobi was a couple of weeks back, on the way to pick my sister up from the airport, where Benson (the familiar character from my previous post), was my driver. One thing that is shocking is that this was happening in the parking lot of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. I decided to stay in the car, and Benson dealt with the Police Officer. Benson made it very clear to him, that he was going to stand up for his rights (citing the new constitution, which is seen to be the catalyst for a sort of political awakening in Kenya) and that he was willing to go to jail, or to court or to pay off any fine, and that under no circumstance was the police officer going to see any of his money. This is a risky strategy which backfired towards one of my friends in Nairobi, and one of my Juhudi colleagues in Kitale, both of whom had to spend a night in jail. It is a heavy price to pay, which is why I don’t judge people who fall into Category II.

One of my favorite stories is that of a team of management consultants from India who were over in Nairobi, a little while back, doing some consulting work for Juhudi Kilimo. Now for weeks, they had not been anywhere besides the Juhudi Offices and their hotel rooms (I know this because I was on their side of the table just a few months back – and when clients juice consultants, as I have found on this side of the table, consultants tend to allow themselves to be juiced). The first day they decided to venture out, within just the first 100 meters of their little trip, they hit a Police Check Point. They didn’t even have enough time to fasten their seat belts, but they still got accused of breaking the law. I don’t know exactly how the exchange went down, but the cops took away their passports, and they had to end up paying 1,000 shillings each to get them back. Similar thing happened to some friends out here in Nairobi, just a month back.

This brings me to my final piece of advice. Anyone who finds themselves in these situations (and if you’re reading from Nairobi, chances are that it will happen pretty soon) should play what I call the “Donkey Strategy”. I am particularly good at it, perhaps because I naturally come across as an ass. The idea is simple. When in these situations, stay calm, collected and polite, and waste the police officers’ time. Beat around the bush, talk about the weather, or do whatever else you have to in order to avoid the subtle exchange that the police officers will be trying to drive you towards. You will probably find that 8 out of 10 police officers will give up because, simply stated, you’re wasting their time. They have a narrow window, usually from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. to collect as much as they can, and anything more than a 5 minute exchange is a waste of time for them. Plus, there are plenty of people behind you passing through the same road, who are much easier targets to try and hit. And it’s certainly not worth their while to take you to the Police Station, or through Court Proceedings, especially if your offence isn’t that serious. Just remember to always fasten your seatbelts, and if you drive your own car, remember to get a Music License from the Copyright Association of Kenya. The Music License is especially important if you’re blasting “Kigeugeu by Jaguar”,  in your car (check it out on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTBYc3lAnMU). It’s a catchy tune, and my Kenyan colleagues tell me that it's all about corruption. Corrupt doctors, corrupt policemen, and corrupt pastors, among all sorts of other corrupt characters. I have a feeling that the cops at the Police Check-post will not appreciate that you’re listening to it.

A naive word of warning: Do not under any circumstances be rude to them or tick them off emotionally. Thinking across my encounters in Kenya, I broadly find that people out here are not as emotional as many of my compatriots back in Pakistan. But you never know. In Pakistan, “Ghairat” (self-respect) and “Intiqaam” (revenge) frequently trumps reason, and one has to tread very carefully in these situations. It’s one of the many reasons why the war on terror continues to drag on (another post for another time). This is also probably the main reason why our colleague in Kitale had to spend the night in jail. Final disclaimer: I do not accept any responsibility if things go wrong. If things seem to be going seriously haywire, you can always step in late and turn them around. This is unlike a game of poker where some of my friends will castigate me for not placing my bet in one loud and clear, pre-announced move. With the cops on Nairobi’s streets, one can always place a bet after all the cards have been revealed, and change the bet quickly depending on how the situation unfolds. This gives us a bit of leeway to test out the waters and see if the “donkey strategy” works. Please try to stay out of jail. And do call me if you need a friend to bail you out.