{"id":144945,"date":"2016-11-29T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-29T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=144945"},"modified":"2016-11-30T14:31:19","modified_gmt":"2016-11-30T12:31:19","slug":"top-5-reasons-why-we-pay-bribes-in-south-africa-and-how-much-we-give","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/144945\/top-5-reasons-why-we-pay-bribes-in-south-africa-and-how-much-we-give\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 5 reasons why we pay bribes in South Africa &#8211; and how much we give"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Results of the South African Citizens&#8217; Bribery Survey 2016 reveals which situations we are most likely to pay a bribe, and how much we are willing to pay.<\/p>\n<p>A survey published by the Ethics Institute, in conjunction with Massmart, questioned more than 4,500 people across five provinces and all income levels.<\/p>\n<p>A third (33%) of the respondents indicated that they, or someone they knew, had been approached for a bribe in 2016 \u2013 while almost 60% said that the bribe was paid.<\/p>\n<p>This figure however, is significantly lower than 75% of respondents in 2015 who said that the bribe was paid.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are we paying bribes for?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>These are the biggest areas where bribes are paid in South Africa<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Avoiding traffic fines &#8211; <strong>36%<\/strong> (34% in 2015)<\/li>\n<li>Getting jobs &#8211; <strong>18%<\/strong> (17% in 2015)<\/li>\n<li>Getting a driver\u2019s licence &#8211; <strong>15%<\/strong> (13% in 2015)<\/li>\n<li>Getting discounts from businesses &#8211; <strong>7% <\/strong>(4% in 2015)<\/li>\n<li>Getting tenders &#8211; <strong>6%<\/strong> (6% in 2015)<\/li>\n<li>Avoiding police and criminal charges &#8211; <strong>6%<\/strong> (4% in 2015)<\/li>\n<li>Home Affairs &#8211; <strong>4%<\/strong> (3% in 2015)<\/li>\n<li>Education\/qualification bribes &#8211; <strong>3%<\/strong> (3% in 2015)<\/li>\n<li>Housing\/land related bribes &#8211; <strong>3%<\/strong> (2% in 2015)<\/li>\n<li>Getting access to social grants or pensions &#8211; <strong>2%<\/strong> (2% in 2015)<\/li>\n<li>Other types of bribes 0.3%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/EthicsInstitute.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-144947\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/EthicsInstitute.jpg\" alt=\"ethicsinstitute\" width=\"612\" height=\"846\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/EthicsInstitute.jpg 612w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/EthicsInstitute-217x300.jpg 217w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 612px) 100vw, 612px\" \/><\/a><strong>How much people pay<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Participants who indicated that they knew someone who had been asked for a bribe were also asked: \u201cDo you know how much it was?<\/p>\n<p>This was also an open-ended question where participants could give actual rand amounts.<\/p>\n<p>The most frequently mentioned bribe amounts were R50 and R100.<\/p>\n<p>The median bribe amount was <strong>R700<\/strong>, while the average bribe amount mentioned<br \/>\nwas <strong>R2,201<\/strong>. This is slightly up from R2,005 last year.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why do you think they chose to pay the bribe?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This was asked of those who indicated that they knew someone who had been ask<br \/>\ned to pay a bribe in the last year, and the person ended up paying it.<\/p>\n<p>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 &#8216;needed&#8217; to avoid going to jail.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>There is some overlap with &#8216;Why not, it is not a big deal&#8217; which 8% of participants indicated as the reason for paying bribes.<\/p>\n<p>The report noted that 35% of participants in the &#8216;other&#8217; category said that bribes were paid to avoid a fine, and 24% said it was to avoid going to jail, or to avoid arrest.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/125349\/how-much-south-africans-are-willing-to-spend-on-bribes\/\" target=\"_blank\">How much South Africans are willing to spend on bribes<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Results of the South African Citizens&#8217; Bribery Survey 2016 reveals which situations we are most likely to pay a bribe, and how much we are willing to pay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":136053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-144945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144945"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145065,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144945\/revisions\/145065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}