Vol. 9 No. 2 (2025): Journal of Anti-corruption Law

This issue of the Journal of Anti-Corruption Law presents interesting scholarly articles that offer a rigorous and multidimensional interrogation of corruption, accountability and institutional integrity across African governance systems.

Walyemera examines Uganda’s anti-corruption architecture, exposing how the proliferation of formal and informal enforcement bodies reflects a deficit of political will and often produces institutional duplication, conflicting mandates and weakened enforcement. He argues for institutional rationalisation and the strategic use of emerging technologies to enhance accountability and efficiency.

Mubangizi adopts a human rights lens to analyse the corrosive relationship between corruption and sustainable development in Africa. Drawing on comparative case studies, he demonstrates how systemic corruption undermines socio-economic rights and obstructs the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals, advancing a compelling case for a human rights–based anti-corruption framework.

Musavengana interrogates corruption within child-sensitive social protection systems, conceptualising it as structural violence against children. His analysis advances a transformative, rights-based approach aimed at dismantling entrenched patterns of exclusion and intergenerational disadvantage.  Sope explores emergency procurement during the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa and Nigeria, revealing how urgency and weakened controls intensified corruption risks, and proposes resilience-oriented procurement reforms to strengthen future crisis responses. 

Hamman examines the entrenched problem of procurement corruption in South Africa, focusing particularly on fraud within the public tender system. He demonstrates that procurement processes are highly vulnerable to manipulation because of the significant financial stakes involved and the broad discretionary powers exercised by officials, conditions that create opportunities for practices such as bid rigging, collusion, and the use of front companies. Hamman advances a reform-oriented argument that technological innovations, particularly the deployment of artificial intelligence and data analytics, could strengthen oversight by detecting irregular procurement patterns, reducing reliance on human discretion, and enabling earlier identification of corruption risks within procurement systems.

Adams, in her keynote address, shifts the focus from institutional corruption to the broader role of the justice system in restoring community voice and dignity. Speaking from the perspective of a judicial officer, she reflects on how crime, violence and institutional failures erode public trust and silence communities that already feel marginalised. Through reflections on landmark cases and lived courtroom experiences, Adams illustrates how judicial decisions can become vehicles for social recognition and public education, reaffirming that justice is measured not merely through convictions but through the creation of spaces where victims and communities are heard and their dignity affirmed.