- Today's episode explores corruption.
- (mafia-themed music) - Call me cynical,
but I feel like we're living in very corrupt times.
Everywhere you look, people in lofty positions are using those positions
- to enrich themselves. - (sirens blaring)
Sometimes, the powerful steer important government contracts
to their cronies.
Sometimes, they charge bribes for essential services.
And sometimes, they preside over the gross misuse of funds
intended, sorry, can we just cut for a second, please?
Um, do we really not have the budget
for a nicer backdrop or like a location or something?
- What about the plant?
- It's a very expensive plant!
Ow, what are you?
No, shiny, like this one.
(suspenseful music)
(man munching)
- Okay, sorry, my bad.
I, I'm being an asshole.
Sorry, sorry, everybody!
- Don't worry about it.
My mouth, no, not a twenty.
- Mm, yeah, there we go. - (bills rustling)
Aight, from the top, what's his name?
Kal, baby.
- This is corruption.
- (text explodes) - (text creaks)
- (rock music) - Whether you like it or not,
we're all connected by money.
I'm Kal Penn, exploring this giant beast
that is the global economy.
(ducks quacking)
There is a lot of corruption in the world.
Across the globe, corruption costs
an estimated $2.6 trillion each year,
skimming 5% off the planet's GDP.
And according to the World Bank,
corruption is one of the main reasons
the rich get richer, while the poor stay poor.
- (people clamoring) - (camera snaps)
Part of what makes fighting corruption hard
is that it isn't just one thing, like bribery.
It's a whole party platter of slimy activities,
from selling Senate seats,
to taking joyrides on taxpayer-funded planes.
But how does corruption affect the economy?
To find out, I'm going back to school,
to talk to a guy who has spent years
studying that very question--
Former U.S. Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich.
Thank you so much for doing this.
I have been a fan of yours for a while.
Any chance that when the show comes out
you can, uh, you can mention it
to your 2.5 million Facebook followers?
- Well, we'll see.
I would like to help, sure, in any way I can.
- Okay, well, what if I gave you an origami box?
(sneaky music)
- It's beautiful, absolutely beautiful.
Look, and there's even something inside.
- Oh, well yeah, that is money.
Now will you mention us?
- Uh, (chuckles) no, no.
- Damn! - (Robert chuckling)
Robert Reich apparently is a man of integrity.
That's a refreshing quality in a guy
who has spent a lot of time in the White House,
three White Houses actually.
He worked as Labor Secretary under Clinton,
for Carter before that, and for Ford before that.
Now, Reich focuses on how corruption on Wall Street
and in political lobbying is hurting America.
He even made a movie about it.
How would you define corruption?
- Corruption is the payment for things
that are deemed illegitimate by society,
that should not, according to most people,
be bought or sold.
The guide is, would most people feel that this is wrong?
If it's a payment that you and I are involved in,
and I say, hmm, I don't know, let's, you know,
you know, let's talk about it like this--
- (Kal chuckles) - And by the way,
my hand is under the table, and don't tell anybody else,
it's obvious we're getting away with something
that is, if not against the law,
certainly against the spirit of the law.
- Okay, I would love if you could talk me
through some of the more egregious examples of corruption,
but then, also maybe, some of the everyday ones
that we don't even think of as being corrupt practices.
- One example is kickbacks.
Suppose you are a doctor and the drug company
is giving you a little tip based upon
how much you prescribe my drug.
That's not good for the person who is your patient.
Your obligation should be to the patient,
not to the drug company.
- So, if that is definitely corruption,
then is our political system corrupt?
And I'm thinking of industries paying lobbyists
or making donations directly to candidates themselves,
those candidates then propose bills
or vote in the interest of these companies, is that corruption?
- That's a quid pro quo, that's corruption.
A lot of Americans look at that and they say,
hey, the game is rigged in favor of the people
with a lot of money and big corporations and Wall Street.
- And are there smaller forms of that?
- Are there things that-- - Yes.
Petty bribery sends a signal to an entire populace
that it's okay to be on the take,
it's okay to pilfer, it's okay to take from the employer.
All of that is bad.
I mean, economic terms, corruption is a huge negative.
The countries that are most corrupt
are growing the slowest and having the hardest time
getting out of poverty.
Once you open the door to corruption,
everything flies through it.
The door gets wider and wider and wider,
and the economy has a very hard time growing.
- You could fill a whole library
with the different ways corruption creeps in
and stunts economies.
But sometimes, it starts small.
- (horns blaring) - (motor engines roaring)
(upbeat music)
In India, low-level corruption, known as petty corruption,
is rampant in the form of bribery.
According to an Ernst & Young survey
of international business leaders,
83% said that bribery is a deterrent
to foreign investment in the country.
I'm meeting with a group of middle-class professionals
in Pune to find out what living
with widespread low-level corruption is like.
I understand how corruption works.
I've worked in India before,
so, I've had a taste of it.
As a kid, I remember coming in,
and there would be a long line to go through customs,
- and it was basically-- - (group laughing)
It was a shakedown.
My mom is really tough and she's like,
"I'm not paying you for this!
I'm not coming in to sell!" Like, she is a badass.
She's awesome. She's yelling back at these corrupt customs officials
who are trying to shake her down for money.
- I am the kind of person who is like your mother,
I'll be like, "I'm not paying you for this nonsense
because I haven't done anything wrong."
And if I have done something wrong,
then I would rather just pay the fine.
- Has that actually happened?
Yes, I fought with multiple police,
men and women
and my mother's had to just step in,
and usually she just pays them off.
- What are you scared of? Is there something you're scared of
- if you don't pick which one? - Yeah.
Maybe they'll start just abusing you,
or they'll start talking in a rash language or something,
and I'm always in a hurry.
I've tried the excuse,
"I'm going on a, you know, emergency."
Then they tell me, "You are a doctor, no?
Okay, instead of 400, just give us 200."
- So, they'll ask you straight up.
- Yeah, that happens.
- You have a similar experience?
- Yeah, I have a experience with my family.
One of my cousins, he met with an accident.
They're not that rich, so they went to a public hospital,
which is government.
His leg is fractured. He is not able to stand.
He asks the ward-boy to help him
to shift him on the second floor
because he had to get it plastered.
He's asking for the bribe before he'll give you the wheelchair
and then take you upstairs.
- That has serious ramifications for people's health.
Do you set money aside for that?
Like a rainy day for corruption?
- Yeah, people do.
- My friend's dad is a lawyer.
He's gotten people who come to him and say,
"We wanna set up a restaurant and we've done
"all the work that needs to be done legally.
Now they just want us to pay them under the table."
And, and my friend's dad just said,
"Pay them. You know, you could give me
"all the money you want, and we still wouldn't be able to fight them.
Just pay them."
- I think mentally we are prepared.
Only thing is, we don't know the exact amount
how much we'll have to pay.
- So, that's why there's no line item
in your budget for bribery, but mentally, you are prepared--
- Mentally we are prepared.
- And I would imagine, constantly in a state of anxiety.
(upbeat music)
It's not hard to imagine how small-scale corruption like petty bribery
becomes commonplace.
But bribery is just one of the many types of corruption
the global economy can dish out.
Here's what else is on the menu.
(cheerful music)
- Corruption can take various forms,
but all of them are connected to power.
Imagine if the person running your cafeteria
exploited her power for more than just free tater-tots.
There'd be rampant bribery,
where people pay to be in my good graces.
- (scanner beeps) - Can I have a tray?
- Could I have a tway?
I don't know, can you?
(scanner beeps)
Go right ahead.
Nepotism is also a common form of corruption,
like when I hired my brother, Derek,
whose skill set includes being related to me.
- (Derek sneezes) - (nursery music)
- You're supposed to say "bless you."
It's common courtesy.
- There's also self-dealing,
because why should we buy desserts
from a reliable wholesaler when I can pay myself?
- Excuse me, there's a Band-Aid in this.
- Congratulations, Derek's just a little bit clumsy.
(cutlery clatters)
Oh, and I almost forgot,
extortion and blackmail.
It would be a shame if the wrestling coach
knew that you broke your diet to have that yummy dessert.
(chuckles)
Go in peace!
- (cashier rings) - Also, there's embezzlement,
which is basically just theft.
Derek, put that under the mattress.
- You got it, Sis.
- Corruption never tasted so sweet.
(crunches)
Is that a toenail?
Damn it, Derek!
- Corruption is easy to spot when it's just a few bad apples
running independent shakedowns.
- (sirens blaring) - But how do you know
when it's a bigger problem,
one that has worked its way into the system?
To find out, I'm back in New York
to consult New Yorker Reporter Adam Davidson.
Since Adam's also a producer on this show,
I don't think he'll mind if I just pop in.
- What's up? - What's up, man?
- How would you define corruption?
Is corruption like pornography?
You know it when you see it?
- Corruption, we think about it today
as this perversion, this bad thing
that happens to otherwise well-functioning economies.
But that idea is so new.
If you think of a feudal monarch,
where the king has absolute power
and peasants are essentially property of the king,
that is so corrupt that the word corruption is meaningless,
'cause it's, there's nothing being corrupted, it's just--
- It's just how it is. - It's just how it is.
So, to actually think of it as corruption,
you first need to build a functioning middle-class economy
that can be corrupted.
I would say it's a helpful rule of thumb
to establish, is a country fundamentally corrupt
as opposed to just sometimes corrupt,
is to ask the president or prime minister,
who's the biggest person in concrete in this country?
And if that person knows or, even more likely,
if that person is in active business with that person,
that is a sign it's an extremely corrupt country.
- That's so interesting, okay.
- Concrete is, in many ways, the perfect substance
through which to look at this issue of corruption,
both how it works and also, how it hurts people.
- [Kal] Hold on, let me do some creative visualization.
- Sure. - (upbeat music)
(machines clanking)
- (clattering) - (laughs) Yeah!
- Okay, go ahead. - [Adam] So--
- Hell yeah! - Anything made of concrete
has three components, what they call aggregates,
sand and little stones--
(machine buzzing)
Cement, and water.
The cement, in a properly-built concrete structure,
is about 15% of the overall material,
but it's the vast majority of the cost.
So, there's a huge incentive to not use as much cement
and build a building.
It'll stay up, but it'll eventually fall down.
- When you hear on the news, 250,000 people died
in an earthquake, it is not an earthquake disaster,
- it's a concrete disaster. - Wow.
In 2010, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti,
causing $8.5 billion in damage
and killing over 200,000 people.
Many survivors pointed to poorly-made concrete
as the reason the destruction was so bad.
Bad concrete also had deadly consequences in Turkey in 1999,
in Sichuan in 2008, and in Mexico in 2017.
In some of these cases, the same contractors who profited
from putting up bad concrete benefited from the rebuilding.
In Haiti, many of the construction contracts
went to a relative of the Prime Minister's wife,
which raised a lot of questions.
- What we see in corrupt countries is
the basic material of life, things like concrete,
potable water, electricity, telephone lines, boring stuff,
become sources of enormous wealth for the elite.
That's, that's, prevents a society from developing.
That prevents an economy from growing in a healthy way.
- [Kal] Oh, and just in case you think it couldn't happen
in America, in 2006, six contractors were arrested
for their role in Boston's Big Dig.
It was the most expensive highway project in history,
costing $243 billion
and 15 years of traffic jams,
not counting the damages paid for the leaks, the flaws,
and one death.
- Corruption is also a draw away
from legitimate enterprise.
It's a terrible force that really strikes
at the very heart of what makes the modern world good.
(dramatic music)
- I'm starting to understand
how serious the consequences of corruption can be.
Now, I wanna see this beast up close.
Perhaps somewhere, I can experience first-hand
a wide range of corrupt businesses
or maybe even see the pristine habitats
of cronies in the wild.
(cheerful jazz music)
Conveniently, those are the exact things
offered by what might be Prague's oddest tourist attraction,
the Corrupt Tour.
- (door slams) - Alright.
So, this is the Corrupt Tour.
- Actually, what we show here in Prague
is the best of the worst.
- [Kal] Petr Sourek was inspired
to start the Corrupt Tour in 2012.
Since then, the Czech Republic's Parliament
has never stopped serving up
heaping portions of graft and sleaze
for him to work with.
Like in 2013, when the Prime Minister,
who ran on an anti-corruption platform,
resigned amidst a bribery scandal.
- As a corrupt tour, we like corruption.
We like that they do dodgy deals,
and that they do it openly, in the public.
- (laughs) So, that gives you more to work with.
Yeah, of course.
- Prague is a city that never stops
giving Petr material, like Blanka Tunnel,
a giant over-budget construction pit,
basically, Eastern Europe's version of the Big Dig,
and Motol Public Hospital,
where doctors were accused of giving preferential care
to VIP patients.
Actually, the tour doesn't go there anymore
because administrators told Petr he could only come around
if he paid them.
So, what do you love about what you do?
What do you, what do you love most about giving these tours?
- Typically, corruption feeds on business.
Now we're a business that feeds on corruption.
- That's cool. - In a legal way.
- I hear you. - Okay, okay?
- [Kal] Petr's Corrupt Tour is a lighthearted slap back
at the power players who have ripped off the Czech people.
Snacks are included.
- And now you can bite it.
- For the photo. - I can bite it?
Are there nuts in it? Okay.
There's even a graduation ceremony at the end.
(hands clapping)
I just handed over money for this MFA in Corruption,
which seems about right.
(upbeat music)
For a deeper understanding,
I need to learn from someone
with a more serious approach to the topic.
Hi, I'm here to see David Ondracka.
- Please, come upstairs. - Thank you.
- [Kal] Transparency International
is the world's leading anti-corruption organization,
with 100 offices around the globe,
and David Ondracka is part
of its crack corruption-fighting team of experts.
Even though David's dead serious about fighting corruption,
like everyone else I've met in Prague,
he also has a little weird fun with it,
like this educational corruption board game.
- The aim of the game is really to get rich
and to get as many politicians as you can.
So you're using money to buy their influence.
- I think a lot of people who are watching
are gonna say, well, we're just screwed.
- No. - There's no way
that I could ever make a difference in anything.
- No. - And clearly, you don't
believe that, otherwise, you wouldn't be working here.
- Being an anti-corruption activist
is not a simple thing to do.
We are facing very strong opponents
financially and power-wise.
But, we still can actually make a difference.
But in many parts of the world, it's a very
dangerous exercise, right.
And you're risking your life.
I'm a political person so I like to play this role,
and it's something which still keeps me excited.
- One of the strategies Transparency International
uses to stop corruption is its Corruption Perception Index,
which surveys international business people
and then ranks 180 countries around the world
on their reputation for trustworthiness,
with number one being the best
and number 180 being the worst.
So, what's the cost of corruption
and why should people care?
- Well, the simple answer is money, of course.
The public money that should be targeted on
specific public services are being used to
someone's pocket, that's very simple.
If you dig deeper, you will find out
some unbelievable stories and unbelievable processes.
Government deals are being manipulated at an enormous level.
At the end of the day, it's the highest form of corruption.
- Well, that's all well and good, but it's not funny.
How do we make it funny?
(dramatic music)
- There's nothing funny about corruption,
especially at high levels of government.
That is grand corruption.
The ruler of my nation keeps an iron grip
on his power and wealth, and he demands
to be treated like a god.
Plus, he spies on everyone!
So, his inner circle continues to get fat and rich,
while the rest of us just toil in factories.
He even gave himself a ridiculous title,
Santa Claus.
- (power zaps) - (switches to Christmas music)
- (hands clap) - (toy train horn blares)
See, it all started when dear Santa seized control
of a vital resource, Christmas gifts.
Now, people have to bribe him with milk and cookies.
Meanwhile, those of us who actually make the gifts,
well, we're so malnourished
that we don't even grow to full-size.
(slurps)
I mean, there's no incentive for hard work
or innovation because Claus Man will just take credit.
I mean, you don't even realize
how much control he has over people.
Like parents, parents will buy a gift for their kids,
with their own money,
and still say that Santa brought it.
Dumb fucking sheep.
Wanna know another symptom of grand corruption?
How about changing the rules
to only reward people who are nice
in the eyes of dear Santa, and then punishing everyone else
with this crap.
Son of a bitch keeps lists.
People wait in line for hours,
just for the privilege to beg at his feet.
Guy doesn't do shit!
He works, what, one day a year?
Ho, ho, ho, hey, come sit on my lap!
Alright, jolly son of a bitch!
- He's in here! - Oh, shit, North police.
Tell my story!
Don't you put me on a shelf!
- (mellow music) - (train rattling)
- [Kal] One country that has had its economy rocked
by grand corruption is number 62
in Transparency International's ratings,
Malaysia.
Malaysia recently had the biggest corruption scandal
in its history.
- [Reporter] Prime Minister, you look happy.
Can I ask you, sir, why you haven't resigned
over personal involvement in the corruption scandal
of global proportions, sir?
- Well, I think the big headline grabber
was the revelation that the Prime Minister
had taken one $700 million payment
into his own bank account on one transaction.
- [Kal] This is Clare Rewcastle Brown,
a Malaysian-born journalist who broke the story
that Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak
was taking money from a state-owned investment fund
called 1MDB.
- There was a lot of positive publicity over it,
how he was going to raise this money
and he was going to invest it for Malaysia
and it was going to make Malaysia very rich
through all these profitable investments.
- [Kal] 1MDB raised billions of dollars
from investors all around the world,
including Goldman Sachs and the Saudi royal family.
But that money wasn't coming back to the Malaysian people.
- The money went into the bank accounts
of the proxy, Jho Low, who has now got himself
an international reputation
as the playboy of the Western world of that time.
- ♪ Girl, I wanna ♪ - ♪ Do it ♪
(rap continues)
- [Kal] Jho Low was Prime Minister Najib's
money-laundering associate,
and he allegedly used 1MDB money to finance yachts,
a Picasso, and to party with the rich and famous,
like Paris Hilton, Ludacris, and of course, Leo,
whom he met while financing, ready?
The Wolf of Wall Street movie with Najib's stepson,
Riza Aziz.
Jho Low even gave Leo a Picasso
as a token of his friendship, you know, like friends do.
- It's symptomatic of exactly what happens
in these kleptocracy cases.
The money has gone global.
- While Jho Low partied across the globe,
the Prime Minister and his wife, Rosmah Mansor,
lived the high life, complete with mansions,
fancy cars, and Birkin bags.
- (text scraping) - (text chings)
And all of this while Malaysia's national debt bloomed.
(person shushing)
It sounds like they gave you some
pretty salacious stories, too.
It's not like they were covertly doing this
and hoping nobody noticed.
- No journalist would write a critical piece
about the government.
In fact, they would be too frightened
to look into a critical piece about the government.
So, what I was doing was saying hey, that's,
journalism is about criticizing authority,
it's about holding authority to account,
and this story rumbled on.
He tried to crack down on it.
He tried to crack down on me.
From that point onwards, for the next two years,
you had a prime minister pitching his sheer power
to prevent his self being kicked out of office,
and that just made people even more angry.
- (mellow music) - (water splashing)
- [Kal] One of the people who read about Najib's exploits
and got a little fired up had a lot of spray paint
and a lot of stickers.
Street artist, Fahmi Reza.
- I think how I got my political consciousness
and this, this spirit of rebellion that I have,
yeah, it comes from punk music.
And for people who say that,
"This punk is not in line with our Eastern values,"
I just say, "Fuck you!"
(Kal laughs)
- Fahmi was sick of his government stealing
from the people, and he used that frustration to fuel art,
making posters portraying Najib as a literal clown.
This poster says, we're all corrupt down here.
Can you tell me a little bit about
how it affects everyday Malaysians on a daily basis?
- The prime minister and his wife live in
this luxurious lifestyle.
Carrying Birkin bags and diamonds,
while people are still living in poverty,
without running water, clean water,
and without electricity and some without housing,
and the 1MDB company committed a huge debt
because of corruption and also because of bad investment,
and who is forking over the money?
It's us. It's the taxpayers.
Back in 2015, the government introduced
a new tax system, the GST.
The Goods and Services Tax.
Trying to take more money from us
to pay for their debt, you know, their corruption.
And after they introduced the GST, you can immediately
see the higher cost of living.
It's more expensive for people to just buy food.
That's how, I think, it affects us every single day.
I think for some of us who just won't take it anymore...
We do this. We do this.
- You need an outlet, sure, yeah.
(rock music)
- I came up with this image.
That's the first poster I did.
- Oh, cool.
- So I just took Najib's portrait
from his Facebook page,
and just drew the clown face over...
-over his face! -(Kal laughing)
- [Fahmi] And I posted it on all my social media accounts.
(gunshots)
- I assume at some point that shit got real.
- The culture of fear in Malaysia is real
because the police, you know, and the authorities
have so much power and can just arrest you,
and that's what happened to me.
I was found guilty and sentenced to prison
over a simple tweet.
- For how long? - One month jail
and a thirty thousand ringgit fine.
That's about $6-7,000 US dollars.
Over the next one, two years, the clown caricature
turned into a symbol of protest.
It expanded into a whole movement
of defiance and resistance
against Najib and his corrupt government.
- People like Fahmi and Clare
used their voices to fan the flames of that resistance.
And soon, the floodgates opened and new voices joined,
rising up to take Najib down.
Can you describe your political relationship
to your father now?
Who's your dad, why are we talking to you?
- Who's my daddy? Um, okay, my father is--
- (laughs) I didn't mean who's your daddy,
but I guess, sure, who's your daddy?
(Nurul laughing)
Nurul Izzah Anwar is a Malaysian member of Parliament
who was arrested for speaking out against the ruling party.
She was sticking up for her dad,
an opposition leader who had been jailed multiple times
by the Malaysian government on charges
that many believed were politically motivated.
Your father had spoken out against corruption
for a very long time.
- For Najib's coalition, it was just too much.
It was just, like, in four face, you know, the corruption.
It's like, this showcase of ostentatious wealth.
My God, Birkin handbags. We have the record...
...we hold the record...
...for the most Birkin handbags in the world!
People were also feeling the economic pinch.
Remember, he decides to introduce
the Goods & Services Tax regime.
Prices went up, and their pay wasn't improving.
So it came as a shock,
because Malaysia's a welfare-based state, okay?
You know, a lot of assistance, we really care
about narrowing the gap between rich and poor.
Poverty is an issue.
I have kids in the low income housing in Kuala Lumpur,
struggling to even eat more than once a day.
The malnutrition is worse than Ghana.
After a while, it was a perfect storm, right?
Because people just could not swallow it anymore.
- On Election Day 2018, all the polls said
that Najib's ruling party was a shoo-in to retain power.
But a fired up populace came out in record numbers
to prove the polls wrong and voted him out of power.
(people chanting in foreign language)
The new Prime Minister was 92-year-old
Mahatir Mohamed, and his new second-in-command?
Anwar Ibrahim, Nurul's father, now released from prison
in a turnaround that was compared to Nelson Mandela.
Now, the people are looking to you
for anti-corruption measures for progress.
How do you sort through what's doable,
what's important, what to use your political capital on?
- It will be a tough time for Malaysia.
Economically, we're going to take the hit
from the debt, the ballooning debt, thanks to 1MDB.
And we have to manage it properly
to ensure the average Malaysian doesn't feel that.
So, no matter what happens, we've got to finish this, right?
- Najib and his Birkin-bag-loving wife had assets seized
and were both charged with corruption.
Charges were also filed against Jho Low,
who went into hiding.
To add insult to injury, Leo even rejected his gift,
turning the Picasso over to the feds.
With Nurul's father poised to lead the country,
there's hope on the horizon for a corruption-free Malaysia.
But how realistic is it to totally eradicate corruption
once it's infiltrated a society at the highest levels?
I don't have to go far to find out.
Because Malaysia's close neighbor, Singapore,
which actually used to be part of Malaysia until 1965,
has a reputation for being almost scarily corruption-free.
But before we find out how this island nation
got so squeaky clean, there are a few things
I need to get out of my system.
(urine splashing)
Singapore is probably best-known
for its extremely un-chill laws.
For instance, not flushing a public toilet
is a $150 fine.
Or say I had some important business
and I had to borrow my neighbor's wifi,
in Singapore, that's hacking.
I'm looking at a possible $10,000 fine
and maybe three years in the pen.
Or maybe I just want to enjoy a nice tropical breeze
while I iron my pants.
Being naked in your own home with the windows open
can cost you up to $2,000 and three months in prison.
(flute screeching)
Playing a musical instrument
in a way that causes public annoyance
might cost you a grand.
Other things to avoid, selling gum,
drinking water on a train platform, feeding pigeons.
Oh, and graffiti could mean jail time, a hefty fine,
and between three and eight strokes of the cane.
So, keep the onions, keep the mushrooms,
and, and extra sauce but just no cheese.
I know that's a little bit of a weird,
uh, this is not illegal, I'm just ordering a pizza.
- (horn blares) - Okay, I'm ready.
(techno music)
Singapore's strict laws are part of a bottom-up approach
to fighting corruption.
If everyone's too afraid to even think about small crimes,
there's no way they'll risk trying the bigger stuff.
I mean, would you take a bribe in a country with kiosks
encouraging you to snitch
on your corrupt friends and neighbors?
- Corruption is something like a form of cancer.
It will start small, but if you don't eradicate it
at the early stage, it will spread to all parts of the body.
When that happens, the whole body system will collapse.
- Chin Wee Liam is the deputy director
of Public Investigations,
here at Singapore's Corrupt Practices Investigations Bureau,
a government agency that is obviously very serious
about corruption and very proud
of being very serious about it.
The CPIB Office even has an anti-corruption museum,
which enshrines great moments at hardcore policing.
- A domestic helper was found flouting the rules,
by drinking water inside a station.
The security officer caught her doing that,
and he actually asked for $300 to let her go.
For this case, we actually prosecuted the security officers.
- Okay.
- It seems to be a very, very petty offense,
but if you allow this to happen,
you can imagine the consequences.
Our founding fathers, they were determined
to stamp out corruption in Singapore.
Right from the onset.
So in Singapore, we basically adopted
a zero-tolerance approach.
- [Kal] The approach seemed to work.
Singapore's anti-corruption reputation drew business
and that led to real economic benefits.
Foreigners felt safe investing here,
making it one of the premier financial
and banking centers of Asia.
- Last year, in 2017
we actually investigated a total of 103 cases.
- Are there patterns in the types of corruption
that you do see actually taking place?
- The majority of it, they are petty offenses,
but we do have a fair share of corruption involving
a senior public servant or
prominent business people in the private sector.
- [Kal] It seems like we should note here
that despite having a sterling
Transparency International rank,
Singapore's ranking for press freedom is abysmal,
so, it's hard to get any unbiased insight
into the types of grand corruption
that may be going on unreported.
But last year, a major scandal did break,
that state-linked Singaporean oil rig-builder, Keppel Inc,
was paying bribes to secure overseas business.
The scandal shook Singapore's citizens,
like business school professor, Eugene Tan.
- What is very upsetting for Singaporeans
when it came to the Keppel case,
is that Keppel is a government-linked company.
- Linked to the government of Singapore.
- Yes. These companies would never dare to engage
in blatant corrupt practices within Singapore.
But it seems that they operate by a different set of rules...
...when they are abroad.
- Is this idea of no corruption, being strict at every cost,
is that sustainable for a country like Singapore?
- It is a constant struggle.
When we gained self-government from the British,
corruption was fairly endemic,
and there's nothing here, right.
Most of our foods are imported
our water is imported as well.
- No natural resources. - No natural resources.
That meant that we had to...
to make ourselves relevant to the world
on our own terms and what could work for us
would be a place where people could come and do business...
invest here, you know, explore the region as well.
Corruption has to be non-negotiable
because I think society would be
dramatically impoverished and investors would avoid us.
I mean, "trust" to me is, I think...
...our currency.
So I think there is no room for complacency.
If you talk about the fight against corruption,
it means doing the right thing
even when no one is watching.
(marimba music)
- But, if a hardcore zero-tolerance approach
to corruption like Singapore's isn't fool-proof,
what are some other ideas for stopping corruption?
(rock music)
(motors rumbling)
To find out, I have to go back to India,
where a maverick thinker has an unusual take.
Professor Kaushik Basu was Chief Economist at the World Bank
and was also the Chief Economic Advisor
to the government of India.
He says that we're handling corruption all wrong.
Professor Basu thinks that the surest way
to eliminate India's biggest corruption problem, bribery,
is not to crack down on it Singapore-style,
but to treat it like all human vices
that metastasize in the dark, and legalize it.
When you see India on the list of rankings
of most- and least-corrupt countries,
India is not at the top of that list.
- No, right. - It is not the most corrupt--
- No. No. - Or anywhere near the most corrupt.
- India is a country with very sophisticated laws,
but a surfeit of that,
so virtually everyone is violating some law,
because it's so complex.
You do want to clean that up
and make it possible for people to be law-abiding.
- Now, what was your solution to deal with this?
- You see, it struck me there's something in the Indian law,
Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
It says that, "For bribery is dreadful.
If whether you give a bribe or take a bribe,
you are equally guilty."
- [Kal] So, by Indian law, all the people I met at dinner
in Pune are technically criminals,
just for paying a bribe.
- The law makes it worse,
because in the end you collude.
After giving a bribe, you collude
with the person who has taken it.
If you make bribe-giving a legitimate activity,
bribe-taking you're guilty...
then after I give the bribe, I'm not guilty
and I'm willing to speak.
So I was being very much the economist
and I thought this was a nerdy idea I'm posting,
never anticipated the political fall out from that.
- So, what was the fallout after you posted this?
- People thought it was a dreadfully immoral suggestion
that I had posted on a government website.
I thought if that minimal step can be taken,
and never was I deluded to think that
this was going to take care of the problem,
but it will immediately begin to rupture,
and you'll begin to think of this as demeaning.
"I won't put up with that."
- [Kal] Like many legalize-it advocates before him,
Basu was ridiculed for his anti-corruption strategy,
and his idea was not put into law.
(techno music)
But does he have a point?
Secrecy breeds corruption,
and corruption requires secrecy.
Corruption lives in the dark, preys on the poor,
and refuses to die.
It's a powerful, vitality-draining vampire.
And heroes, like Fahmi and Clare,
they're trying desperately to drag it into the light.
Maybe just talking about it openly,
without fear of the repercussions,
robs the corruptors of some of their power.
Corruption is kind of like the global economy itself,
in our day-to-day lives, most of us only see
tiny parts of it, extremely close up,
so, we never get a full sense of what a huge, hulking,
hungry fucker it really is.
It's a giant beast, wrapped around us,
guiding our moves, from what we buy to what we value
to the bribes invisibly greasing the wheels around us.
The only way you can get close to understanding it,
let alone taming it is to stand back far enough
to take in the whole hairy thing.
- (laughs) Yeah. - (blowing raspberries)
- Two and-- - (Elf inhales)
- (cameraman faintly speaking) - (Elf loudly exhales)
- Kal, sport, whatever, take it.
What's your name?
- (chuckles) Sorry. - (crew laugh)
This has turned very weird.
- [Man] How much was the--
(mellow music)
(elevator beeping)
(clown cries out, speaks gibberish)
- (Kal yells) - (clown laughs)
Oh, my God!
(both speaking gibberish)
- Oh, no, not this.
- Not this one. - No?
Okay, I'll-- Mmm.
(both laugh)
(whip cracks)