system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: how government officials corrupt the wealth of a nation

Since when I was a kid, i've been hearing that there are a lot of corrupt government officials. What I don't understand is how they steal from the people for their own personal gain. 

Now that I'm older, I can compare that to where I work. In the office, everything is listed. Money comes in and the company use it to pay their employees and also the for some of the "other" expenses. These are all recorded by our account department. And they'd know if the company is spending more than it should. No more no less. 

Aren't there any record of how much the government gets out of taxes? Where they spent it and how much more they have? Don't they have an accountant of some sort? How does it end up to the politician's pocket and not back to the people?
gpt
Usually this happens through the use of companies. The government routinely hires companies to do jobs -- anything from paving roads to building airplanes to printing tax forms. A corrupt official may direct the government to buy from a company that a relative owns, even though their prices are bizarrely high. That's a way of sending out government money to a private family.