Being asked to pay a bribe to a traffic official is the most common form of corruption in South Africa, a new crime survey has found.
The Western Cape has the second-highest number of bribe solicitations in the country for those trying to avoid paying a traffic fine. People also offer bribes for driving licences, passports and other identity documents.
This is according to Statistics SA’s 2011 Victims of Crime survey, which was conducted from January to March and covered 29 754 households.
The top government sectors where bribing takes place are the traffic departments, police, social services, housing and home affairs, while those seeking employment are also willing to pay to get a job.
Only 5.6 percent of households had been asked to pay a bribe to government officials between 2008 and 2010. However, being asked to pay a bribe to a traffic official was the most common form of corruption.
“More than half (52.8 percent) of those who were victims of corruption were asked to pay a bribe to a traffic official to avoid traffic fines,” StatsSA said.
Being asked for a bribe to avoid a traffic fine was most common in Gauteng (62.2 percent), Western Cape (57.6 percent) and Eastern Cape (55.8 percent). The second-highest bribe solicitation was for policing (21.4 percent).
Householders were asked if government or public official had asked for money, favours or a gift for a service they were legally required to perform.
Other sectors where bribes were solicited included driving licences (15.9 percent); job seekers (13.8 percent); pension or social welfare grants (6.6 percent); water or electricity (7.3 percent); housing (8.3 percent); medical care (2.8 percent); court-related services (3.9 percent); schooling (3.1 percent); identify document (13.3 percent); prison visits (1.5 percent) and customs (2.2 percent).
Traffic-related bribes were up 20 percent on 2007 and 25.1 percent on 2003. Policing bribe requests had increased by 2.8 percent since 2007.
Bribes requested for identity documents or passports had decreased by 3.2 percent and for pension or social welfare grants by 2.8 percent.
Bribes related to schooling had dropped by 0.1 percent and medical care-related bribes had increased by 0.7 percent.
A separate survey by the anti-corruption organisation Transparency International found corruption and bribery were getting worse in southern Africa. It surveyed 6 000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, SA, Zambia and Zimbabwe between 2010 and 2011.
In four out of the six countries, people reported paying bribes to speed up services, but in SA and DRC more bribes were paid to avoid problems with authorities.
Fifty-six percent of people who came in contact with public service providers had been asked to pay a bribe in the past year, the survey found.
Those polled in all six countries named the police as the most corrupt service provider and the one which had received the most bribes.
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