SHORT OVERVIEW OF CORRUPTION WITHIN SOCIETY.
Corruption
By LT
"The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst" Daviv Hume.
From available data from NBS on corruption Patterns and Trends, scope of bribery in Nigeria, the data indicates that out of all Nigerian citizens, who had at least one contact with a public official in the 12 months prior to the 2019 survey, 30.2 per cent paid a bribe to, or were asked to pay a bribe by, a public official.
This means that, although still relatively high,
the prevalence of bribery in Nigeria may have undergone a moderate, yet
statistically significant, decrease since 2016, when it stood at 32.3 per cent.
Of the 37 states in Nigeria, including the Federal
Capital Territory (FCT), 17 recorded statistically significant changes in the
prevalence of bribery from 2016 to 2019, of which nine experienced significant
decreases.
Ordered from the smallest to the largest decrease,
those states comprised Abia, Kano, Taraba, Zamfara, Sokoto, Nasarawa, Ondo,
Kebbi and Borno. By contrast, eight states experienced (statistically
significant) increases in the prevalence of bribery, from 2016 to 2019. Ordered
from the smallest to the largest increase, the states were Niger, Enugu, Osun,
Akwa Ibom, Gombe, Kogi, Ebonyi and Kwara. [63 ]
The prevalence of bribery may have decreased but the
frequency of bribe-paying has not, Although a smaller percentage of Nigerians
that had contact with public officials paid bribes, or were asked to pay
bribes, those who did pay bribes continued to do so quite frequently. 5.8
bribes paid per bribe-payer in 2016. As a result, it is estimated that some 117
million bribes are paid in Nigeria on a yearly basis, the equivalent of 1.1
bribes per adult.
That said, corruption
has been identified as one of the main spoilers of Nigeria's ambition to
achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and, in particular, of its
aspiration to lift more than 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in the next
10 years.
Reasons why bribes
are paid
·
An increasing share of bribes are paid for speeding
up procedures and for avoiding fines
·
According
to the 2019 survey, almost one in two bribes (45 per cent) is paid for the
purpose of speeding up or finalizing an administrative procedure. In a large
share of cases, bribes are paid for purely speeding up a procedure (38 per
cent), while the share of bribes paid to avoid the payment of a fine reached 21
per cent in 2019. Accounting for 26 per cent of all bribe payments, the most
common service sought when paying a bribe in the 2019 survey was a public
utility service, followed by the issuance of an administrative licence or
permit. Other commonly sought services reported in the 2019 survey include a
medical visit, exam or intervention, the issuance of an administrative certificate
or document or of a tax declaration or exemption, and the import/export of
goods.
·
Furthermore,
around 3 per cent of cases were related to payments to the police for “bail
from jail”, a type of payment that does not refer to the legal type of bail administered
by courts, but rather to payments extracted by corrupt officials for the
release of arrestees from jail prior to the formal commencement of a trial.
The proportional distribution of services was remarkably similar in both the 2019 and 2016 surveys, with rare exceptions. This similarity suggests the motivations and reasons for the payment of bribes remain consistent, at least in the short-term.
Figure 2: Prevalence of bribery by Type of Public
Official 2016-2019
Contributors
·
Poor
mechanisms for reporting bribery remain the Achilles' heel of the
anti-corruption system and nepotism and vote-buying recruitment in the public
sector.
· The selection process used to recruit public officials plays a crucial role in shaping the culture of integrity that should drive the civil service as well as ensure that new recruits have the highest standards of professionalism and merit. However, the survey findings indicate that the public sector recruitment process requires closer monitoring as almost one third (32.5 per cent) of people who secured a job in the public sector in the last three years admitted that they paid a bribe, either personally (16.4 per cent) or through a member of their household (16.1 per cent), to facilitate their recruitment, more than double the share in 2016, when the combined total reached 16 per cent.
The2019 survey also found evidence that a considerable number of people recruited into the public sector secured their posts with the help of a friend or relative, many in addition to paying a bribe: of all successful applicants surveyed in the last three years, 28 per cent were helped by friends or relatives. Indeed, almost half of all public sector applicants in Nigeria are still hired as a result of nepotism, bribery or both.
Although the prevalence of bribery in the private sector of Nigeria is lower than public sector bribery across all the country's zones, there are substantial variations in the prevalence of private sector bribery. The southern zones, particularly the South-South and the South-East, have the highest prevalence of private sector bribery, at 7.7 and 7.5 per cent, respectively.
Differently from actual trends of bribery experience, more
than half of Nigerians believe that corruption increased in the two years prior
to the 2019 survey. Furthermore, the analysis of the list of the most pressing
problems afflicting their country, as reported by Nigerian citizens in 2019,
shows that corruption has moved from 3rd to 5th position as there has been a
sharp increase in the level of public concern about security and health issues.
Around 9 per cent of Nigerians considered corruption to be
the most important problem facing their country, a significant decrease from
the 14 per cent recorded in the 2016 survey. These findings all point to the
fact that the perception of the public, whose understanding of the issue is of
the utmost importance, does not always reflect the actual occurrence or
experience of corruption, as they can be influenced by numerous factors,
including the emergence of other priorities at the national level.
Worth noting here is the impact of corruption and its
contribution to the quality of security provision, which I believe may make the
position of corruption move up in the list of pressing problems to be addressed.
Lekan Thomas
Is a Business Analyst and Electronic Engineer (with
extensive expertise in assisting both public and private organisations accomplish their goals), writes from Lagos.
Twitter: @LekanThomas_Esq
Insta: @lekanthomaz
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