Anti-Corruption Website
Namibia's Zero Tolerance for Corruption Campaign

Corruption is often attributed to the low salaries of civil servants.
This differentiates between:
need driven (satisfying basic requirements for survival) corruption and greed driven (satisfying desires for status and comfort that salaries cannot match) corruption.

It may be true that it is more difficult to stay honest, hard-working and trustworthy on a low salary, but it is also true that most people with low salaries are still able to do so and that many corrupt officials are people in high, responsible positions, earning good salaries.

In conjunction, corrupt practices flourish in systems where:
employees have high job security; where the level of professionalism in the public service is low; and hence officials rather serve their own interests than perform their duty to serve the public.

However, low salaries are not a valid reason for and do not justify corruption.