During my recent vacation in my home country, my son and I had the opportunity to spend a few leisurely days with my best friend and her three sons at a countryside house. My friend and I became the referees in charge of controlling the emotions of four kids ages eight to four.
As it could be expected, many situations arose in which a kid claimed justice especially when another one took the floating doughnut away. Nonetheless, they knew just how far they could go because the moms were ready to discipline them if necessary.
Now, on June 19th, 2019, Colombia’s congressmen behaved like kids taking advantage of their lack of supervision. They passed around the floatie of the so-called Anti-Corruption Law; for almost two years they have told their countrymen that they are willing to “clean house.” But, in the end, they popped the floatie and sunk it.
By faking a confusion during the reconciliation process between the House and Senate bills, they honored my country’s saying, “everybody covers under the same blanket.” They joined efforts, regardless of their party affiliation, and blocked the measure that would eliminate the house arrest benefit for white-collar criminals.
Corruption in the public sector is a worldwide epidemic, and Transparency International’s data shows it. Since 1993 this global coalition, against corruption, has kept busy qualifying 180 nations with their Corruption Perception Index, CPI.
Economic analysts and private sector businesses grade countries from 0 to 100. On this scale, 0 means highly corrupt and 100 means honest. According to the 2018 CPI (see report) the average score worldwide was 43, and more than two-thirds of the 180 countries received a grade under 50.
The top five honest countries were Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, Singapore, and Sweden with scores between 88 and 84. The top five corrupt countries were Somalia, Syria, South Sudan, Yemen, and North Korea having scores between 10 and 14.
The United States placed 23 on the list with a 71 score. In Latin-America, the less corrupt countries were Uruguay (position 23 and 70 score) and Chile (position 27 and 67 score). Colombia claimed position 99 with 36 points above Brazil and Peru, which placed 105 and received a score of 35.
Obviously, Colombia is not the only corrupt country in the world. However, the shameless actions of the “honorable” members of Congress make us feel as though we were the only and the worst.
In other countries corruption might be manageable. But Colombia, which is a nation that is flooded with illegal narcotics, is seeking to rebuild after a six-decade-long civil war, and to add, has become the top refugee port of the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, the impact of corruption is nothing but disastrous.
The longer politicians continue to steal from the treasury, the less is the possibility that peace will be a reality.
Thank you for reading and sharing.
Xiomara Spadafora
Good crazy woman 