Bribery a South African ‘tradition’ – Report

Four in five people believe the government is not doing enough to address corruption, according to a new Corruption Watch report.

The nonprofit organisation says the report reveals a clear demand for stricter consequences for any corrupt behaviour of government officials.

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The Impact of Corruption: Insights From a Perceptions and Experiences Survey questioned 1 500 respondents in all provinces and assessed the profound impact of corruption on people’s lives.

No ID after seven years

Orange Farm’s Sindile Nhambi is one such person. After seven years, she is still battling to get an identity document from the department of home affairs.

She says she has lost hope of acquiring one and attributes her ongoing struggle to corruption within the system.

“Home affairs sent me from pillar to post. I was told I have to bribe officials if I want my case to be noticed. Everything requires money, someone must be paid.

“Years later, I still don’t have my ID and I stopped trying.”

Findings in the report revealed a lack of confidence in the efficacy and ability of law enforcement agencies to tackle corruption. It reported that 81% believed the government was not doing enough to address corruption in the provision of basic services.

“More than half of the respondents [73%] agreed corruption mostly affects the provision of housing and land, safety and protection of communities [69%], the provision of quality education [68%], access to quality health care [67%], the administering of justice by courts [64%] and food security [62%],” the report noted.

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Nhambi, who has a laundry business, said: “I wanted to study teaching but I can’t apply without an ID. I can’t find a proper job. I can’t ask for investments without documents. I don’t have access to certain things.”

Regarding interactions with officials in relation to corruption, the report said 24% of 600 to 700 respondents had admitted to giving a “gift”, or doing a favour for police officers, car licence officers (23%) or traffic management officials (23%).

A taxi driver from Pimville admitted to bribing traffic officers every morning, “like a tradition”. “Sometimes you can have all the documents required and still pay them,” he said.

“There are taxi drivers who do not have driver’s licenses and they pay traffic officers every day. If traffic officers actually committed to doing their job, many drivers would be arrested,” he said.

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Corruption Watch said the study aimed to highlight the perceptions, characteristics, experiences of corruption and the prevalence of corrupt practices within the public and private sectors.

Community Policing Forum leader from Drieziek Vincent Mabuza said it was hard fighting corruption when officials were behind it.

“We patrol the streets at night, trying to protect our community. But we know the criminals we catch and take to police stations will be out tomorrow because they bribe officers. If officials are behind corruption then we have no power.”