/ 27 February 2004

Kenyan ‘bribe taxes’ decreased in 2003

A report launched in Kenya this week indicates that levels of bribery in the country decreased last year.

The third Kenya Bribery Index was issued on Tuesday this week by the Kenyan chapter of Transparency International (TI-Kenya), a Berlin-based NGO. It says that monthly expenditure on bribery in 2003 was about $16,8 per person, compared to $52 per person in 2002.

The report surveyed 2 407 people across the country about their experiences with bribery in five key areas.

These included dealings with law enforcement officials, regulatory authorities (those which issue licences of various sorts) -‒ and organisations that provide services, like hospitals and public utilities. The extent of bribery in the business world was also surveyed (such as payments to get contracts), as well as graft within the workplace for obtaining jobs and transfers.

From the information received, TI-Kenya was able to rank 38 organisations according to factors such as the likelihood that their staff would demand bribes -‒ and the extent to which a refusal to pay would lead to services being denied.

Kenya’s police force performed worst in the survey, as it did last year -‒ something that came as no surprise to a number of citizens.

Amollo Omondi, a civil servant said: ”Even to record a statement in police stations, some officers ask for bribes … the government must act immediately.”

Efforts to get comment from the police on TI-Kenya’s findings proved futile, as the official responsible for dealing with the media was constantly unavailable.

The Department of Defence was placed second in the index, while Kenya’s judiciary ranked 12th. This department has been in the spotlight recently, with 23 judges being suspended last October because of alleged corruption.

While the survey showed that people were paying fewer bribes than they had in previous years, the average size of bribes has risen.

TI-Kenya says this suggests that petty bribery is decreasing -‒ and that the fear of getting caught is prompting officials to demand ”bigger inducement(s)” in order to act illegally.

The report also showed a disturbing reluctance on the part of Kenyans to take action against bribery: almost 76% of respondents said they had ”kept quiet” when they encountered graft.

Nonetheless, the index is positive news for Kenya, which has performed dismally in previous corruption studies.

In 1996, the east African country was ranked 52 out of 54 countries in TI’s corruption perceptions index. Only Nigeria and Pakistan performed worse. Two years later, Kenya was placed 73rd out of 85 countries -‒ and in 1999, it ranked 90th of the 99 states surveyed.

TI-Kenya ascribes the apparent decline in bribery to a number of factors.

”The reduction is a combination of greater public awareness and a high level of scrutiny by anti-graft (officials). People are now much more aware of the disadvantages of bribery, and so people are paying fewer bribes than before,” said Gladwell Otieno, TI-Kenya’s executive director.

The National Rainbow Coalition government, which came to power in December 2002, pledged to free the country of corruption.

Apart from taking action against corrupt judges, authorities have also instituted a commission of inquiry into the Goldenberg scandal which involved the export of gold and diamonds from Kenya between 1990 and 1993.

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund normalised relations with Kenya towards the end of last year after a 10-year hiatus prompted by concerns about corruption. – IPS