Blockchain Takes No Prisoners In Fight Against Corruption
Public money disappears most of the time, and often nobody really knows who pocketed it and when. In the Philippines, they’re trying something different: a blockchain system that promises to deal with widespread corruption in the country. India spends billions on public projects every year, and it could see real benefits if it tried something similar.
The Gist
- The Philippine government is leveraging blockchain technology to track public works projects, ensuring accountability and transparency.
- 'Integrity Chain' records every contract and payment, making it immutable and accessible for validation by various stakeholders.
- This approach contrasts with traditional systems, which are susceptible to manipulation and lack oversight, potentially serving as a model for other nations combating corruption.
As a country, we’re familiar with stories of bridges collapsing shortly after the ribbon is cut, newly built roads getting washed away with the first monsoon, and project budgets doubling somehow though the work still looks only half done.
Corruption in public works is one of those things everybody knows exists but nobody can quite prove until the mess is too big to hide. That’s exactly what happened in the Philippines. The country saw major anti-corruption protests just a week ago, the kind India saw in 2011-2012.
Public anger boiled over, tens of thousands took to the streets after it came out that billions spent on flood-control projects had gone down the drain, literally.
The people expressed outrage over a corruption scandal involving politicians, officials and construction company owners who allegedly pocketed huge kickbacks from flood-control projects in the country.
Faced with the protest, the government did something unusual. Instead of ordering a routine inquiry or promising to form a committee to investigate the matter, it reached for technology. A blockchain platform appropriately named ‘Integrity Chain’.
This system is built to track every contract, every payment, and every project milestone in public works. The USP of this technology is that once a record is added to the system, it can’t be hidden or modified.
Also, the oversight control doesn’t stay with bureaucrats or a committee alone. NGOs, universities, and even journalists can become validators to check if the official story matches the facts.
The blockchain rollout is the government’s way of saying: Don’t believe us? No problem. Believe the new system that cannot be fudged.
System Without Backdoor
Let’s understand how the Philippines has planned this experiment, leaving no loopholes whatsoever.
The first unique thing is that the data doesn’t go through a human gatekeeper. It’s pulled directly from government records, and then it is encrypted and time-stamped before being put on the blockchain. Once it’s there, it’s there for good.
At launch itself, more than 40 organisations including NGOs, universities and media groups signed up as validators. Each one gets a single vote, and their own actions are also logged.
In other words, even the validators are being watched.
BayaniChain, the start-up behind this, has bigger plans. If ‘Integrity Chain’ works for flood-control and roads, it plans to expand it across agencies and cover the entire $98 billion national budget. Every penny, visible to everyone.
Trial Cases
The technology is already being tested in some countries as a tool against corruption.
Colombia, with the help of the World Economic Forum, has tried out a version of the Ethereum blockchain in its public procurement to make the tendering process more transparent, while Georgia has registered 1.5 million land titles on their blockchain-based system to curb fraud.
Similarly, the UN’s World Food Programme has used it to ensure aid reaches the right people, and companies like AB InBev in Uganda have deployed it to pay farmers in order to ensure there is no corruption in the last mile of the supply chain.
Systemic Fix, Not Jugaad
Indian cities are upgrading their infrastructure in a big way through metro networks and modern highways.
But these projects are not beyond the same age-old whispers about inflated tenders, cost overruns, and political favours.
The government has introduced e-tendering and digital dashboards to monitor things, which is progress, but ultimately the data is stored on official servers. If something doesn’t get uploaded — knowingly or unknowingly — the public never sees it.
For a country like ours, the Philippines’ idea offers a systemic fix, not some kind of a jugaad: put all the data on a blockchain which nobody can manipulate later.
That way, every flyover contract, work progress, or payment to a contractor is visible on the chain, with civil society groups validating each milestone. It would not only stop corruption meaningfully, but also save us from submitting endless RTI queries just to get some basic answers.
Final Words
Of course, India is bigger, much more political, and a lot messier. Giving NGOs and universities the power to check government contracts might sound impractical and even outrageous.
But that’s because we have in a sense normalised corruption and any serious effort to deal with it taken with a pinch of salt.
But we don’t need to continue being that way. A technological change across the country may not be possible at the moment, but we can always start small. Perhaps a pilot involving a flagship project. We would know if the technology works here too.
This series is brought to you in partnership with Algorand.
