Top 5 reasons why we pay bribes in South Africa – and how much we give
Results of the South African Citizens’ Bribery Survey 2016 reveals which situations we are most likely to pay a bribe, and how much we are willing to pay.
A survey published by the Ethics Institute, in conjunction with Massmart, questioned more than 4,500 people across five provinces and all income levels.
A third (33%) of the respondents indicated that they, or someone they knew, had been approached for a bribe in 2016 – while almost 60% said that the bribe was paid.
This figure however, is significantly lower than 75% of respondents in 2015 who said that the bribe was paid.
What are we paying bribes for?
The biggest reason for paying a bribe was to avoid fines for traffic offences, while a worrying number of respondents admitted that they knew someone who was asked to pay a bribe.
However, the report highlighted the private sector is also susceptible to dodgy dealings, where respondents said they would bribe people to get special discounts or to turn a blind eye to questionable activity.
These are the biggest areas where bribes are paid in South Africa
- Avoiding traffic fines – 36% (34% in 2015)
- Getting jobs – 18% (17% in 2015)
- Getting a driver’s licence – 15% (13% in 2015)
- Getting discounts from businesses – 7% (4% in 2015)
- Getting tenders – 6% (6% in 2015)
- Avoiding police and criminal charges – 6% (4% in 2015)
- Home Affairs – 4% (3% in 2015)
- Education/qualification bribes – 3% (3% in 2015)
- Housing/land related bribes – 3% (2% in 2015)
- Getting access to social grants or pensions – 2% (2% in 2015)
- Other types of bribes 0.3%
How much people pay
Participants who indicated that they knew someone who had been asked for a bribe were also asked: “Do you know how much it was?
This was also an open-ended question where participants could give actual rand amounts.
The most frequently mentioned bribe amounts were R50 and R100.
The median bribe amount was R700, while the average bribe amount mentioned
was R2,201. This is slightly up from R2,005 last year.
More than half (56%) of bribes were reported to be below R1 000, while 91% of bribes were reported to be below R5 000, indicating that very high bribe values were rare.
Why do you think they chose to pay the bribe?
This was asked of those who indicated that they knew someone who had been ask
ed to pay a bribe in the last year, and the person ended up paying it.
A notable 43% of these participants said that bribes were paid because there was no other choice (or the individual really needed the service/job/tender/document/etc.). This might include people who really needed a service/document to which they were entitled, as well as those who really ‘needed’ to avoid going to jail.
The next most prominent reason for bribing, at 36%, was that it was convenient. This indicates that a large proportion of people do not view bribery as a serious moral or legal transgression.
There is some overlap with ‘Why not, it is not a big deal’ which 8% of participants indicated as the reason for paying bribes.
The report noted that 35% of participants in the ‘other’ category said that bribes were paid to avoid a fine, and 24% said it was to avoid going to jail, or to avoid arrest.
Read: How much South Africans are willing to spend on bribes
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