Background introduction Corruption has emerged to the point where it is underreported but in reality, it haunts many people daily, especially in public offices. In South Africa the corruption take place in most government institutions, government administration at top level, middle and lower level of government. Corruption benefits the few and harm the majority of people living as lower income households. The economic literature has little evidence of the connection between corruption and poverty. Many studies have concentrated on the causal effect of poverty on corruption, not vice versa. Method This study extends the literature on corruption to investigate the impact of corruption on poverty from a South African perspective. Other control variables such as the Gini coefficient and unemployment were considered equally. Secondary data stretching from 2000 to 2021 were selected based on data availability it was then converted to quarterly data (poverty and corruption). The study used the quantile regression model, descriptive statistics table and data trends of the selected variables. Results The results of the quantile regression model indicate that corruption has a positive and significant effect on poverty at all quantiles (25 th , 50 th , and 75 th ). Moreover, income inequality has a positive, dominant, and significant effect on poverty at all quantiles, and unemployment equally causes poverty at all quantiles. This imply that socio-economic issues are a threat that exacerbate poverty in South Africa. Conclusion The study argues that policymakers should invest in youth development programs concerning entrepreneurship, education and support women cooperatives and small businesses to reduce the high dependency ratio of people on state services and to reduce high inequality and unemployment rates. The study was limited to investigate the causal effect that run from corruption to poverty only and not on the other way around.
Ngubane et al. (Mon,) studied this question.