No one can deny that the trust of citizens is necessary in the world of politics and governance. It can even be said that it is the foundation on which a government is built on, because the government is created by the people and for the people.
However, according to the 2022 Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) by the World Bank, the average score for government integrity is a mere 43 out of 100. The lesser the score is—the more corrupt a government is from the eyes of its citizens. Therefore, on average, more than half of the people around the world perceive that their governments to be generally untrustworthy.
One way that politicians commit corruption is through the manipulation of records to steal money from taxpayers. This directly relates to the integrity of government when it comes to the recordkeeping and management of a nation’s funds. However, a way that these governments can be kept in check is through the ability of blockchain to provide immutable and tamper-proof records.
Government on blockchain will result in one single source of truth and can be a path that future leaders can invest in to restore the trust of the constituents that they serve. For instance, one way local politicians steal is when they approve and allot a huge budget for a construction project. They declare overpriced materials and labor, but in actuality, only about half of the budget is spent. The rest of the funds go in their pockets.
With government on blockchain, each of the transaction made for this project will be immutably recorded in a timestamped manner. This way, if labor and materials are found to be overpriced, then there are records to show all the details of the transaction and who were actually involved.
This not only instills in politicians the fear of getting caught that will make them think twice before committing fraud, but it will also increase accountability for both politicians and suppliers. Businessmen will also become more cautious when dealing with corrupt officials because their business licenses can be suspended if evidence is discovered linking them to fraudulent transactions.
Government on blockchain can also be very useful when it comes to the legislative duties of an administration. A good example would be an incident in Australia where unjust record keeping roused distrust among the people.
In 1973, a law was passed that created a new title for the Queen of Australia. Coined as the Australia Act of 1973, the law also changed the name of the Parliament of Commonwealth of Australia to “The Australian Government.” This law also created a new Parliament House.
Unfortunately, there were a number of Australians that believed the changes were made unlawfully. For example, some Australians believe both former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and Queen Elizabeth II violated the protocols in place for passing legislation under the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia.
Whether these fears are grounded in truth or malice—the doubt on Australia’s legislative proceedings proves that there lies opaqueness within the government’s processes. To clear up doubts, one must undertake the colossal task of breaking down and studying the legislation of both this act and prior acts to prove their validity.
Verifying these legal documents entails working with definitions for nationalization and citizenship, royal styles and titles, and the context of prior acts, among other things. All these processes are burdensome and time-consuming. However, if such legislative matters were recorded on an immutable ledger, the verification process could be done in minutes.
Everything written on the blockchain is verifiable, and since this record will persist in perpetuity, it becomes a single source of truth that can be used as a reference when drafting new laws. For example, once a legislation is passed, a digital signature can be used as an immutable attestation from the involved signatories.
The authority and legitimacy of these digital signatures are secured through blockchain nodes—as each node contains a copy of the entire blockchain ledger. Therefore, even if one node breaks down, all other nodes will still have a copy of its entire transaction history. This means there is absolutely no data loss. So, these laws and bills will forever be accessible and verifiable.
Blockchain’s feature of verifiability is also a tool to empower the people. One example of this is through blockchain-empowered vote-counting, where the people’s votes can be stored immutably in the blockchain. These votes cannot be changed by corrupt actors as the distributed ledger technology keeps the data safe.
Needless to say, the electorate deserves integrity from their elected leaders. When these leaders choose to use vile methods to gain power, government on blockchain is a path worth taking. Immutability, decentralization, and most of all, transparency, are qualities a solution should have in holding authorities accountable for their actions.
