Why do we care so much about petty corruption?
This is a question we get asked fairly often and to be honest, it is an excellent one.
Why struggle with petty corruption when corruption in politics and business is easy to point the finger at and involves huge amounts of money over the world? Why does Klarity focus on small bills exchanging hands instead?
There are many reasons for why we decided to focus on fighting petty corruption, the main one being the loss of trust that abuse of entrusted power brings to the table anywhere it chooses to show its ugly face.
How could we expect that citizens would engage and believe in democracy when they can no longer trust the public institutions whose sole purpose is to serve them?
As Senator Elizabeth Warren has recently said before the National Press Club in Washington recently, while speaking about corruption;
“This is the kind of crisis that leads people to turn away from democracy. The kind of crisis that creates fertile ground for cynicism and discouragement. The kind of crisis that gives rise to authoritarians.”
Here are some other reasons why we decided to tackle the issue of petty corruption head-on. Because:
- Petty corruption affects nearly 2 billion people in the world today
- Petty corruption affects the poor the most
- Too little effort is put into supporting people to fight petty corruption
- We believe the technology we have available today can help us stop petty corruption
Let’s go into some more detail about these four issues.
Petty corruption affects 1 in 4 people around the world
The current world population is 7.6 billion. Nearly 2 billion of them are directly affected by petty corruption every year.
At risk of sounding like an infomercial; but wait… There’s more.
Although 1 in 4 people in the world is directly affected by petty corruption, it is fair to say that petty corruption affects us all. Yes, even you, who have never paid a bribe.
The list of negative consequences caused by corruption in people’s everyday lives can be made too long. Some of them include a decrease in the quality of public services, the inefficiency of the judiciary system, distrust and disregard for public officials, lack of faith in the government, a decrease in foreign investments, delay in economic growth and development.
Furthermore, failures of expected infrastructural services cause a higher number of traffic accidents. Chances of employment decrease when bribery is a standard way of getting hired. Basic healthcare not being provided if doctors and nurses are not bribed are costing people their very lives.
Simply put, one does not have to personally participate in corrupted practices in order to suffer the consequences of everyday corruption in society.
Petty corruption hurts the poor the most
Petty corruption in the form of bribes and extortion acts as a regressive tax meaning that the burden falls disproportionately on the poor.
Poor households tend to pay a larger share of their income on bribes to gain access to public services which, by default, should be equally accessible to all citizens. This is not acceptable.
Petty corruption is still too much of a blind spot
The likes of Transparency International, the World Bank, Global Integrity, United Nations, IMF, and the African Development Bank are already leading the fight against large-scale corruption aided by journalists around the world. The dedication to uncovering high-profile cases of corruption in politics and business have yielded significant results and are crucial to strengthening democracies.
On the other hand, petty corruption is, generally, not deemed newsworthy. It is not headline material and thus remains grossly underreported and unchallenged.
We see a strong need for amplifying citizen voices by providing them with the tools needed to safely expose petty corruption wherever (and whenever!) they may encounter it.
We (already) have the technology
Today, over a third of the world’s population owns a smartphone.
Gone are the days when capturing strong evidence of everyday corruption was a feat. If current trends continue, 40% of the world population will own a smartphone device by the year 2021.
We have a unique opportunity to use the technology already in our pockets to challenge the status quo and empower citizens to know their rights and hold corrupt officials accountable.
We at Klarity believe that by creating easy-to-use and safe tools for capturing petty corruption and an accessible platform that gives them exposure, we can create a positive change in today’s society.
Join us in the fight to eradicate petty corruption by signing up and becoming a part of the community at Klarity.org.
