Corruption... A Global Thing

A speaker from the country Yemen, came to talk to our class about the Yemen government. He spoke about how the Yemen government has been filled with corruption for its entire existence, and how the government has a hard time regulating its country. "People walk the streets armed with guns everyday," said the Speaker. He feels as if there is less crime because the citizens know that everyone is armed, and they don't want to cause complications with one another. Although, the main corruption is the bribing that takes place. If a man were to get pulled over by a policeman, all he would have to do is offer money to the policeman and he would be on his way. This bribing tactic is often used for other situations as well. Since Yemen has a poor source of power, some apartment buildings are regularly scheduled for a "power turn-off." This only takes place for a short, scheduled period of time because the country simply doesn't have enough electricity to go around. To get to the point, these electricians who shut off the power tend to offer bribes for the tenants to keep their power on. The corruption thought to be in the government, is also in the workplace and society itself. An investigation needs to take place in order to keep Yemen from deteriorating from the inside out.

Yemen is not the only country with corruption. The United States paid it tolls on corruption as well. The "Hired Truck Program" was a scandal in Chicago that involved eight city trucks hiring eight private trucks to do the city's work. It was "called out" in 2005 when a local newspaper reported an investigation done that participating companies were being paid to be doing little or no work at all. These eight city trucks were caught sitting at an abandoned gas-station for their entire eight hour shift. They were being paid to do nothing at all. Truck owners even paid bribes, just to get into this unlawful program. Eventually, this scandal officially came to an end in September 2006. The eight city truck drivers were laid off permanently.

In conclusion, Yemen is going to continue with its bribing and corruption because the people, the workers, and the policemen are all benefiting from its incentives. The only way this corruption can come to an end is if an outside source who cares about the country in the long term reports an investigation. This is exactly what happend in the United States "Hired Truck Program," which eventually was resolved, and everything became normal.

Sources:http://tjyemen.wordpress.com/2009/04/03/corruption-in-yemen/,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_corruption, http://yemen.usembassy.gov/root/pdfs/reports/yemen-corruption-assessment.pdf