Does E-Government Reduce Corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa? A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis

The paper investigates whether the thriving application of ICTs, e-government, reduces the level of corruption within nations in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using a simple Ramsey model, it models the tax evasion in the presence of ICTs and demonstrates how the level of digital-institutional quality that improves digitalisation strengthens institutions, reduces corruption, and thereby enhances growth. Not digitalisation, but digitalisation with institutional quality matters most. Furthermore, this study empirically explores the nexus between perceived corruption and e-government using a panel data set for 44 Sub-Saharan African countries during the period 2003-2022 using various methods of estimation: OLS, IV, FE, and GMM methods. The regional e-government development index (EGDI) average is below the global average. The findings indicate that e-government does not lessen the corruption perception index across all indicators. E-government is robust in reducing the perceived corruption index when full interactions between government effectiveness and e-government, as well as between government effectiveness and economic prosperity, are introduced into the models.