South African Corruption

What I found interesting in the Lodge reading is that is stated that centralized countries (like South Africa) are more likely to be corrupt than noncentralized countries (or at least that centralized systems can contribute to corruption). I wonder if this is the case because in federal systems political accountability comes from the people (because they vote in elections for multiple, distinct levels of government) whereas centralized systems have political accountability from bureaucrats and party officials above them. This would imply that bureaucracies are dependent on political accountability, and that the way political accountability is set up directly affects corruption.