The terrible fire at London’s Grenfell Tower in June 2017 brought this issue — and several others relating to inequality — to the fore. There have been allegations of bribery and fraud and serious concerns about lack of oversight and accountability throughout the complex supply chains involved in the refurbishment and fitting of fire safety equipment. The inquiry will examine specific issues such as fire safety equipment, but unfortunately will not specifically ask whether corruption played a role.
Could this be symptomatic of a complacency towards corruption, be it in more “obvious” forms such as bribery, or in more nebulous — and harder to prove — forms such as inappropriate lobbying activities?
Whatever the level of complacency, how can we halt corruption as a driver of inequality? Here are three areas of possible action, along with some examples of how TI is contributing:
Corruption must be exposed. Transparency takes away hiding places for corruption and decreases the opportunity for it to happen. It gives citizens the information they need to hold those in power to account. For example, TI is campaigning for greater transparency over the true owners of companies of the sort used in the Panama Papers scandals and the Azerbaijani Laundromat.
We need to end impunity. Effective laws, when properly applied, can bring the corrupt to justice. In the UK, TI has successfully campaigned for two key legal powers that can rein in corruption around the world: the Bribery Act (2010), and Unexplained Wealth Orders, a tool to tackle suspected proceeds of corruption from anywhere in the world that are stored in UK assets such as property. These laws are on the statute book and, in the case of the Bribery Act, are already being used. But laws on paper alone do not fight corruption, and in order to end impunity law enforcement must have sufficient resources to pursue complex and lengthy cases. This requires political will.
By empowering citizens, more people can drive change. In many contexts, the best solutions to corruption are local and people-powered. Around the world TI facilitates participatory democratic acts such as social audits and citizen-led monitoring of public procurement. Such acts can help amplify and give voice to those who are most acutely affected, and create positive narratives that corruption can be addressed.
From enabling illicit accumulation of wealth by global elites to denying people access to basic services, corruption often drives inequality, both within national boundaries and internationally. But around the world, people are organizing and speaking out to hold those in power to account. It is their dedication and fearlessness that inspires many of the anti-corruption activists I know, and makes us certain that together we can continue to achieve change.
Louise Russell-Prywata is an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity at the London School of Economics. This commentary was originally published on the Atlantic Fellows Blog.