E.African bribery research released

BUSINESS

The latest East African bribery research research by Transparency International (TI) has found Burundi the most bribery-prone in the region again.

TI’s East African Bribery Index is a governance tool developed to measure bribery levels in the private and public sectors in the region. The survey was conducted among 12,924 respondents selected through random household sampling across all the administrative regions in the five countries between February and May 2011.

The results again listed Burundi as the most bribery-prone, with a bribery prevalence level of 37.9%, up from 36.7% in 2010.

Uganda and Tanzania were ranked second and third at 33.9% and 31.6% respectively, both up from 33% and 28.6% in 2010. Kenya recorded a slight improvement at 28.8% down from 31.9% in 2010. Rwanda is once again ranked fifth, with a bribery prevalence of 5.1% down from 6.6% last year.

The police, revenue authorities and the judiciary across the different countries were poorly rated in the regional aggregate index. All the police institutions in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi appeared in the list of the ten most bribery prone institutions in East Africa. Uganda Police lead the pack of the most bribery prone institutions in the region, followed by the Burundi Police, Customs/Revenue Authority – Burundi, Kenya Police and Uganda Revenue Authority in that order. For the second year running, the survey did not record enough bribery reports to formulate an index for Rwanda. The bribery reports recorded for most of the institutions were statistically insignificant to form a reliable basis for ranking.

The survey also sought to establish the sectors most affected by bribery. The law enforcement sector emerged the most bribery prone sector in Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Uganda. The health and education sectors were also ranked adversely in comparison to the other sectors.

Reporting of corruption cases was low in all the five countries. Burundi recorded the lowest number of people forwarding corruption complaints with only 3.2% reporting corruption incidents.