Rooting out government corruption

A couple of months ago I took an early morning bus to San Pedro Sula, this time as an undercover reporter in search of corruption. I was armed with a report put out by the organization Democracy Without Borders that listed every single check written by the Honduran government in the last six months from the community development fund. In theory, this fund is for members of Congress to use to build schools, pave roads, plant trees, house orphans, and fund all sorts of do-gooder projects. The reality is that it is essentially a government slush fund with few controls and almost no accounting that Congresspeople can use to buy favors, votes, or for to line their own pockets. What I found was shocking. In some cases the money arrived as it was supposed to, resulting in a few computers for a school, or a new roof on a community center. In many cases, a project began but was never finished, or the finished product was so insignificant I wondered how the project was ever approved. And in the most shocking cases, the money never even arrived, and no one seems to know where it is.

The result of the investigation has been published, along with the investigations of my Revistazo.com colleagues who found equally disturbing stories all over the country. The link to my article can be found here (Google translator version in Google English found here.) The rest of the articles can be found on the right-hand side of www.revistazo.com.

Here are a couple of the sad stories I happened across:

Colinas de Suiza

This photo is of an empty water tank in the community Colinas de Suiza (Hills of Switzerland) in Villanueva, Cortés. This community, perched on the very top of a deforested mountain with an amazing 360 degree view, has no water system. They rely on what falls from the sky. About five years ago, the community made contact with a professor from the Colorado School of Mines, who brought engineering students down to Honduras to carry out a study, and, ultimately, to build a water storage tank for the community that would provide everyone with running water.  

Many years and thousands of dollars later (including a mere $5,000 from the Honduran Congress) the big, steel tank is finished, sitting right beside the public school. Unfortunately, it is not hooked up to anything and is completely empty. 

According to the pastor from the local evangelical church (pictured...I can't find his name!), the community was in search for the rest of the money to hook up the pipes to a well at the bottom of the mountain when the city government decided to expropriate the tank using the eminent domain law. Since it was a public service, they argued, the government has the right and responsibility to run it. The city government promptly forgot about these responsibilities, however, and have made no indication that they will remember them any time soon.

For now, the community continues to suffer and fume that the work they did was for nothing.

Villa Florencia

This community in San Pedro Sula is 25 years old, and since it was built the city has done nothing to improve the dirt side roads and potholed main streets. According to the report by Democracy Without Borders, the Honduran Congress approved two separate checks for $25,000 each in 2006 to pave roads in this neighborhood. The neighborhood association, however, says that they have not been able to trace the whereabouts of the money. Furthermore, they only knew of one of the $25,000 checks. The second was news to them. The neighborhood association treasurer said they have gone back and forth between the Congresswoman who promised the money and the city government who was supposed to carry out the project to try and find the whereabouts of the money. Each "kicks the ball to the other," as he so eloquently stated. This is possible because the Congress makes no effort to check up on whether the projects were finished, or whether the money ever got to the community. In fact, the Congressperson can request that the check be written in his or her name so he or she can hand the money out personally.

San Manuel

The road leading out to the village of Santiago in the municipality of San Manuel is 4 kilometers of mostly muddy potholes (combined with beautiful views of a river and lots of parrots), except for the first 200 meters. The Honduran Congress approved $50,000 to pave this small, insignificant stretch of road, and it appears that the money arrived and was honestly spent (an engineer sent a breakdown of what he figured the costs were, and it was more than $50,000). But why, when there are urgent projects like the water tank in Colinas de Suiza left undone, would the Congress spend these precious, limited funds on 200 meters of a highway that few people use? The problem with this slush fund is that the Congresspeople can go around from town to town and hand out token amounts of money in exchange for their votes. There is no planning involved. It's all politics. It is an example of how the system is broken, and how the government sees the poor as pawns to be manipulated for their own power. This, to me, is the saddest part: an account called the community development fund continues to be used to steal what dignity the poor have left--with their own tax money.