Corruption seen as rising worldwide….Ruhi Tewari
Survey shows one out of four people claim to have paid a bribe to service providers in the last one year alone
Survey shows one out of four people claim to have paid a bribe to service providers in the last one year alone
Almost six out of 10 people around the world believe corruption has increased over the last three years, while one in four claims to have paid a bribe in the last one year alone, according to Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer for 2010.
The barometer, released on International Anti-Corruption Day on Thursday, is based on a survey of over 91,000 people in 86 countries and territories and focuses on “petty bribery, perceptions of public institutions and views of whom people trust to combat corruption”.Transparency International is a Berlin-based non-governmental agency and it launched the Global Corruption Barometer in 2003.
Perceptions about corruption levels are the most unfavourable in Europe and North America where 73% and 67% of people, respectively, think corruption has increased over the last three years.
The survey also shows that certain perceptions about corruption, however, have not changed much with time with political parties continuing to be perceived as being most corrupt, and non-governmental organizations and the military at the bottom of the list.
Nearly 80% of the respondents thought political parties– which had topped the list even in 2004–were either corrupt or extremely corrupt, followed by public officials and civil servants. The military is viewed to be the least corrupt institution. Significantly, public opinion about the judiciary seems to have improved with the number of those viewing it as corrupt or extremely corrupt decreasing by 10 percentage points.
“This (political parties topping the list of corrupt) does not come as a surprise at all..,” said Jagdeep Chhokar, founder-member of the Association of Democratic Reforms, a non-governmental organization.
“Political corruption of various levels and orders is not uncommon across the world,” he added. “And this, when we talk about the so-called leading and mature democracies. Elsewhere, it is even more rampant. The fact is that unless the political establishment of a country is corrupt, no other agent or institution would dare to be corrupt. Political parties are the fountainhead of corruption in a country.”
With regard to petty bribery, however, police officials topped the list with 29% of those respondents who came in contact with them reporting paying a bribe. The other nine service providers reported as recipients of bribes include the judiciary, customs, registry and permit services as well as medical services.
Geographically, sub-Saharan Africans have reported paying the most bribes with more than one in two paying one in the last one year. This compares with 36% of respondents in West Asia and North Africa, 32% in the former Soviet republics, 23% in South America, 19% in the Balkans and Turkey, 11% in the Asia-Pacific region, and 5% in the European Union and North America. Countries which topped the list for reported bribe payments over the year were Afghanistan, Cambodia, Cameroon, India, Iraq, Liberia, Nigeria, the Palestinian territories, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Uganda. In these countries, more than 50% of the respondents have claimed paying bribes to at least one of the nine service providers in the last year. Continuing with past trends, the 2010 barometer shows that younger people are more likely to pay bribes than older people. According to the survey, 35% of those who reported paying a bribe in the past year are under 30.
Seven out of 10 respondents claimed they would report an incident of corruption.
N. Bhaskara Rao, chairman of the New-Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies, however, said he was “critical” of the survey.
“Firstly, this is only based on perceptions. Also, it can be misleading because it is based on a very small sample and does not reflect the grassroots reality,” Rao said.