Transparency in democratic society centerson the elected representatives of the masses; those charged with thedistribution and management of our resources, common good, power and authority.It is a self-testifying mechanism for the assessment and valuation (or estimateof importance and usefulness) of public servants and elective officeholders.With its existence or inexistence, the masses get or are deprived of the actualpolitical performance of their elected representatives. Its presence or absencealso draws the inquisitive eyes of the masses to measure the gap between theactual performance of their elected representatives and their targetexpectations from them. This assessed gap between the electorates’ expectationsor desired performance (on their representatives) and the actual political performancestir and compel voters at forthcoming dispensations to vote for or against theelected representatives. No wonder John C. Maxwell wittingly declared that“Transparency breeds legitimacy.”
When an electedrepresentative measures beyond or far above the marginal line of the people’sexpectations or within and below it, political incentives (such asinfrastructures and outlays) during electioneering seasons are worthless. Suchincentives instead make obdurate the resolves of the electorates to eithertotally deny or give the public office-seeker their mandate by ballot-powers.
A well performedelected public-officeholder does not need political incentives (such as thehabitual electioneering time’s infrastructural spree and goodness from theirrepresentatives) because their performances during the elapsing tenure are theloudest and most cherished political incentives. In this regard, transparencyhelps save great outlays for political officeholders and their polity. It savesexcess costs for campaigns and rallies as it is the masses that seek for thewell-performed and distinguished elective officeholder, begging for continuityin the representation and often, some of the electorates volunteer theirpersonal resources to campaign and expend for them. In this way too,transparency ensures political stability, which has strong effects on economicstability.
According to the Indian sage, Narendra Modi, “Transparency is the key togood governance and e-governance is the only effective way of transparent governance.” Transparency,good governance and openness are essential platforms for economicsustainability. According to him, “While transparency reduces corruption,good governance goes beyond transparency in achieving openness. Openness meansinvolving the stakeholders in decision-making process. Transparency is theright to information while openness is the right toparticipation.” This simply implies that transparency yields good governance and has electronicmodalities for its assessment and accountability or access.
Carly Fiorina makes it clearer in declaring that “We need moretransparency and accountability in government so that people know how theirmoney is being spent. That means putting budgets online, putting legislationonline.” It also implies information about the projects, efforts, achievementsand challenges of governance, as well as periodic accountability on thepolity’s outlays.
Consequently,transparency breathes accountability and fans the embers of trust,openness, honesty and credibility in governance. On this note, I seriouslyagree with Howard Schultz’s wise saying that “the currency of leadershipis transparency.” When accountability is made a bureaucratic habit for civiland public servants, probabilities for corruption declines and misappropriationof public coffers, laissez-faire attitudes to public utilities and common-gooddiminish to abysmal level.
To this effect, one can confidentlyaffirm that transparency is a panacea to the menace of corruption and sundrysleaze practices by public officials and contractors in present day democraticpolity. Transparency plays proactive roles to the fight against corruption. Itprevents the possibility of grand corruption, as through accountability, themasses are well informed about their resources-scales and administrativeoutlays, the administrators will constantly be apprehensive of their dignitybeing dented by sleazes and consequences of irresponsibility.
It is in this backdrop that theformer UN Secretary General, Mr. Kofi Annan, said that “If corruption is adisease, transparency is a central part of its treatment.” This converselyimplies that if transparency is a curative therapy, corruption is an ailment,and on this, I concur with Ivan Krastev in his declaration that “Transparencyis not about restoring trust in institutions. Transparency is the politics ofmanaging mistrust.” Yet, it is a proactive approach to ensuring trust and todisproving feelings of mistrust by the governed than the reactive approach tocombating adverse effects of unaccountability in governance, which involvesusing or spending the meagre resources available to fight what costs nothing toprevent- with transparency.
Transparency costs leadership littleor nothing, compared with the huge resources that are lost due tonon-transparency and unaccountability, and in fighting itssleazed-consequences. Accordingly, I want to ask here, who needs to betransparent and what are the benefits of transparency in a democratic society?To this question, I would answer- Every public servant, be it civil servant orelective position officeholder.
In a wise quote, Glenn Greenwald saidthat “Transparency is for those who carry out public duties and exercise publicpower. Privacy is for everyone else.” This implies that while everyone hasprivacy as individual persons, public servants are obliged to be transparent inthe execution of their functions. Accordingly, transparency not only fansembers of credibility but gives positive reputation to societal leaders and thepeople’s representatives. Mike Paul is also quoted to have saidthat, “Trust, honesty, humility, transparency and accountability are thebuilding blocks of a positive reputation. Trust is the foundation of anyrelationship.” This positive reputation is the felt impact of the masses forthe public functionaries.
The social links between publicservants and the masses are the concepts of representative delegation and theexpectations of the delegator(s), which are summed up as responsibility. Responsibility itselfhas triadic significance. It entails the authority to act, accountability andthe state of being responsible for something. Thus, when a public officeholderor functionary as an authority, exercises his routine functions accountably,responsibility truly emerges as the social link between him and the masses,through felt impact.
The above building-blocks are thusoffshoots of transparency and what stir and perpetuate positive reputations onpublic servants. Positive reputation is a product of the reciprocalfelt-impression of the masses on their distinguished representatives or publicservants. This gives them onus to support or long for their continuedrepresentation, which in electoral public-office entails reelection. Theopposite of this is the feeling of insecurity and distrust that provokespeople’s rejection of their representatives with the ballot. Dalai Lamawittingly expressed this thus: “A lack of transparency results in distrustand a deep sense of insecurity.”
One can sum the forgoing discourse bysaying that with adequate information, accountability and probity, transparency stimulatespublic officeholders to assume proper responsibility and thusstrengthens bureaucratic efficiency, which in turn facilitates highproductivity from the public servants and saves undue and wasteful outlays frompublic confers. This is a mandate and manifesto for every public officeholderor contractor, if Nigeria and Imo State in particular will rise from itscreeping economy towards the transcendental lane of economic sustainability.