Criminal mastermind VS blockchain. What role can blockchain play in the fight against corruption?

In both my career and personal life I have witnessed first-hand corruption in all of its forms at almost all levels of private and mainly public institutions; form a local official to the top levels of hierarchies. Most importantly, I have experienced its dreadful and devastating impact on countries’ economy, culture, and society.

A huge number of IT solutions and applications have been developed in the hope of eliminating corruption or at least curbing it. While we’ve seen some success in some areas, we have experience in almost every single case that the corrupt will always find a way around the system to keep up with their crime.

We think that technology can do miracles but essentially conventional IT solutions are as good as their users. A system could be built with the best architecture but eventually the quality of the data in it depends on the quality of the input. We have seen data altered, hacking in order to get privileged information, records deleted, etc.

I remember the day I first learned of blockchain technology, one of my first reflexes was to ask myself: how could this help in the fight against corruption? Can a blockchain based system eradicate corruption in at least one application where conventional systems have failed? Or can the criminal mindset always find a workaround?

I would like to know my fellow steemers opinion on this subject and how do you think blockchain can be superior in this fight?

Take for instance a very simplified scenario where: citizens require to apply for certain permit, but local officials in the permit office would not process the application or delay it or even reject it for no valid reason unless the applicant pays them a bribe. How can a blockchain system solve this issue even where law enforcement and centralized DB systems have failed?

Thank you in advance for your contribution.