February 24, 2023
The standard definition of corruption is that it is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one’s personal gain.
This does not mean that every interaction between a public official and private individual that goes beyond the standard operations of business should equate to corruption or conflict of interest, but it means in a deeper sense that we should be careful of how it looks on the outside on what we do with people that should be held to a standard.
Transparency International’s Corruption Index, while the gold standard in measuring corruption, has failed to take into account the cultural nuance of many of the non “Western” societies that are not as cold and aloof as their Western counterparts.
For example, on any given day in the Caribbean and to some point in the larger Central American countries, you can go into a public office and your cousin or school mate may be the ranking public official. Should you deny yourself the opportunity to do business with them in their capacity because you have a relationship with them? Of course not.
Additionally, we can equally say that money breeds as much corruption as poverty mixed with opportunity. None of my friends can pay for an expensive dinner to invite the Mayor of my city to chat with my other wealthy friends and chat about the prospects for the city. So what is corruption really?
These things have to be put into context or this index will go the way of so many other indices that try to measure for the many but miss the mark on trying to delineate for the few.