Commercials showed humble peasant families as the people who’d benefit from a new government subsidy program intended for farmers. Soon after, though, entire families of campaign donors were receiving millionaire subsidies. Beauty queens and extradited criminals tagged along as well.
In the 2009 Reporter’s Notebook: Colombia, award-winning reporter Ignacio Gómez tells a story about how in his country close friendships and family ties matter more than anything when it comes to money and power. The closer the link is to the President, the better.
The story is part of the Corruption Notebooks, a collection of stories by leading investigative journalists from around the world on what happens when the public is either uninformed about abuses of power or incapable of doing anything about it. The Corruption Notebooks are part of the Global Integrity Report 2009.
— Hazel Feigenblatt
— Image: Botgata by NapaneeGal/Flickr (cc by/nc)
