From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

FROM POVERTY TO POWERI STEAL, THEREFORE I AMPoor people hate corruption. When asked what defines poverty, theyfrequently cite not lack of income, but their helplessness to resistdemands for bribes from the police and civil servants. Such corruptiongenerates a profound sense of powerlessness and exclusion, underminingefforts to build active citizenship.Economically, corruption has the biggest relative impact on thepoorest people. In Romania, a World Bank study showed that thepoorest third of families pay 11 per cent of their income in bribes,while the richest third pay just 2 per cent. 115 Corruption is widespreadin rich and poor countries alike. The US Attorney General has declaredhealth-care fraud to be the country’s ‘number two crime problem’after violent crime, costing billions of dollars each year. 116 In manycountries, private companies pay substantial bribes to obtain governmentcontracts. Across the developing world, informal ‘fees’ arecharged for water, education, and health services. 117Corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain.Corruption for need (sometimes known as petty corruption) contrastswith corruption for greed (grand corruption).They have different impactson poor people and on countries at large, and require different remedies.Petty corruption includes the charging of illegal, often small, feesby service providers, and state employees failing to turn up for work.This is poor people’s most direct experience of corruption in thedeveloping world. Poverty fuels corruption, as starving people find it86