The sword of Damocles: corruption

Jorge Mario Orozco Thomas

Alejandra Silguero Oliveros
Esteban Franco Salcedo

Introduction

Corruption is a form of deception or crime committed by individuals or organizations with

positions and powers in order to gain illicit profits or abuse power for self-seeking purposes.
Corruption can involve many activities, including bribery and embezzlement, and it can also
involve legitimate activities in many countries. Political corruption occurs when another
government official or employee acts in an official capacity for personal gain. In Colombia
the factors in the political corruption are drug trafficking, guerrilla and paramilitary conflicts,
weak oversight and regulation of institutions, intimidation and harassment of whistleblowers,
Colombians often say that the biggest sport in this country is corruption. Since 199
Corruption in Colombia has steadily increased, and as of 2018, Transparency International's
Corruption Perceptions Index ranks the country 99/180. The following 10 facts about
corruption in Colombia analyze the different sectors affected, the impact of corruption and
the potential solutions the country has attempted.

Core

In the first place, talking about corruption in Colombia is essentially like talking about
something that has characterized the country and has permeated its roots, as Lambsdorff
maintains when he affirms that the main nucleus of this problem is the political system based
on some predatory aspects of development such as; I) Clientelism, which can be felt in
society at every moment of elections, since the electoral promises of the country are
constituted to satisfy the general ideal of the population about their "problems" without
having a real or solid context about reality. social, economic and political in the country and
II) lobbies which are a strategy to affect the correct performance of the political system
mediated by large amounts of small interests generally from the private sector that with the
use of money, prestige, private parties, luxuries and other gadgets for representatives of the
public sector to access their requests irregularly.

Under the same line of analysis, due to the weakness of the institutional system in Colombia,
the presence of illegitimate actors appears in the contextual panorama that, taking
advantage of gaps in the power structure, configure themselves around an irregular and
illegitimate framework to act against power. settled down. According to this Lambsdorff
based on Misas (2005) affirms that the influence of these illegitimate actors in the different
spheres of the country is significant and well known, ranging from illegal activities of drug
and drug trafficking to organized crime by small cartels that have even permeated the
political system. It is therefore not surprising that many of the existing problems in Colombia
find a node of connection with these illegal actors because, as the authors affirm, it is not a
question of a decentralized and disorganized phenomenon, but of a structure of centralized
and well-organized mafias that, looking for their Their own interests take over territorial
zones known as conflict zones and there they dedicate themselves to the exploitation of
labor and capital for their illegal activities, and all this even affects the presidential spheres of
the country.

As a third incident factor in this problem appear the private interests that guide the actions of
the different actors mentioned to commit acts of corruption in the entire spectrum of
possibilities. This is explained due to the cost incurred by the agents to perpetuate such
acts, that is, the cost of corruption, which in Colombia is quite light due to the following
aspects; I) impunity, the legal system in Colombia is precarious in many ways with severe
punishment for acts of corruption because a person with enough money can "skip" many
processes or even take advantage of legal entities for his benefit. II) Fragmentation of
powers, understood as a latent weakness in which there is no institutional coordination on
the part of the legal agents in charge of resolving and applying sanctions on the part of the
Colombian justice system for acts of corruption.

conclusión

In general, corruption involves the act in which anyone, politicians, government officials,
public servants, business people or members of the public committee an illicit profit or abuse
power to obtain profits and benefits from large quantities of money. Here in Colombia the
main factor that affects the system is the non-control of the public servants and the strategy
that they continue using to obtain contracts and benefits approaching the budget of the
country. The main factors that impact the national economy are drug trafficking, guerrilla and
paramilitary conflicts, the weak supervision and regulation of institutions and the combination
of each of these factors make that there are individuals who seek to exercise their power,
use corrupt practices and play with salaries, with the theft of budget money, with diversion of
money and companies that disguise their financial statements to receive illegal money.
Another of the main causes is the network of contacts and the circle of associations between
public servants, contractors and businessmen where each one of them is supported to
attract contracts and have a very wide network of corruption, cases such as Odebretch,
Hidruitango, which affect the social context and economic development of the country. Also,
corruption, mismanagement, clientelism and organized crime establish vicious circles in
which each phenomenon creates the preconditions for the spread of the others. Corruption
is part of the social and political fabric of society and, therefore, conflict may be engendered
more by changes in the pattern of corruption than by the existence of corruption itself.
Therefore, it is not in the best interest of any country that corruption continues to grow, what
is sought is to stop at all costs corruption, illicit practices, drug trafficking, money laundering
and in general the external factors that make corruption grow. Therefore, it is the
responsibility of both citizens and other officials to denounce these practices, audit and fine
all those who are involved in the act.

References

Transparency International. (2020, 10 agosto). What is corruption? Transparency.Org.

https://www.transparency.org/en/what-is-corruption
Transparency International. (2019, 25 noviembre). Colombia. Transparency.Org.
https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/colombia
Graf Lambsdorff, J., & Fink, H. (2006). Combating corruption in Colombia: Perceptions and
achievements (Vol. 44, No. 06). Passauer Diskussionspapiere-Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe. Retrieved
from: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/55032/1/684265575.pdf