EACC Reveals: Traffic Police, Health Depts Top Bribery List
A recent survey conducted by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) indicates that the Traffic police, County health department, and regular police are the top three public institutions most susceptible to bribery.
The 2023 National Ethics and Corruption Survey indicates that whenever individuals seek services from the traffic police department, they may encounter a situation where they are asked for a bribe approximately 1.45 times on average.
The prevalence for the county health department is 1.05 times, while for the regular police, it’s 1.02 times.
The county education departments and the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) emerged as prominent institutions where individuals are frequently solicited for bribes.
Regarding particular services, the integrity oversight body discovered that individuals are most commonly solicited for bribes when requesting police security services. This was closely followed by situations involving posting bail for an arrested individual and reporting a crime or providing a statement.
Bribe solicitation is common in other governmental sectors such as during a driver’s license examination, business registration process, and when applying for a Teachers Service Commission (TSC) identification number.
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The services for which individuals are least inclined to be solicited for a bribe include applying for a visa, requesting a water connection, and obtaining a death certificate.
Those interviewed by EACC stated that they had to give a bribe whenever they went to a government office for tasks such as business registration, applying for a TSC number, requesting relief food or water, securing a tender, or registering/transferring a vehicle.
This also extended to gathering building or construction permits, accessing educational offerings, obtaining driver’s licenses, applying for CDF funds, utilizing agricultural extension services, and transferring a student from one school to another.
“Impact of bribery on service delivery is more evident in an application for TSC number, seeking relief food, registration or transfer of a vehicle, collection of a construction certificate, seeking a driving license, seeking CDF funds and seeking agricultural extension services,” EACC said.
“Each time a person paid a bribe for these services, they were more likely to receive the service than if they did not pay the bribe.”
AVERAGE BRIBE INCREASE
The report also noted a rise in the average bribe across the nation, increasing from Ksh.6,865 in 2022 to Ksh.11,625 in 2023.
In different sectors, the most substantial average payments occur during job applications (amounting to Ksh.163,260), passport processing (Ksh.74,428), and obtaining a police abstract (Ksh.20,300).
On average, individuals offered the highest amounts of bribery to obtain services from the National Transport and Safety Authority, totaling Ksh.81,801. This was trailed by the Judiciary at Ksh.49,611, the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) at Ksh.40,000, and county government offices at Ksh.26,223.
In general, passport requests constitute the most significant portion of bribes paid throughout the country (35.8%), with seeking employment (22.1%), obtaining a police abstract (11.5%), and bailing out arrested individuals (10.3%) following closely behind, as reported by the EACC.
The government agency tasked with combating corruption conducted a survey involving 5,100 individuals. The data-gathering process occurred between October 13 and November 4, 2023.
EACC Reveals: Traffic Police, Health Depts Top Bribery List
