In my previous two posts I’ve been diving deep into the world of corruption and how to fight it. This is my third and final post on the subject to wrap things up.

I always remember a conversation I had some 25 years ago with a friend of mine in the Tax Office in Sana’a, Yemen. When I asked him who he was voting for in the upcoming election, he immediately responded, “Ali Abdullah Saleh, of course.” When I asked him why he was voting for someone so obviously corrupt, he shrugged and said, “Because we think that Saleh has now stolen enough; another person coming in would steal even more.” This cynical response of the ‘devil you know being better than the devil you don’t know’ combined with obvious acceptance of the pervasive corruption in the system with no effective mechanisms or institutions to halt corruption has long stayed with me.

Corruption amounts to an additional tax on the many not benefitting from it and is paid for ultimately by suppliers, consumers, employees and taxpayers – in short, everyone. Corruption, if left unchecked, can be an existential threat to the state, depriving the state of funds needed for defense and public services.