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Experiencing corruption
AUG 24 -
At a time when the general perception of the people is that the legacy of Madhav Kumar Nepal’s government is nothing more than increased corruption, a blogger has come up with an ingenious idea to initiate discussion on corruption: posing the question “Have you ever bribed anybody?” (www.mysansar.com, Aug. 20). By the time of this writing, a total of 91 postings have been made. The discussions are in Nepali, and for those not having time and patience to go through individual idiosyncratic, anecdotal corruption experiences, I summarise a few points.
Readers have pointed out a number of government offices, departments and agencies where corruption is rampant including agencies issuing passports, marriage certificates, citizenship certificates, character certifications, land revenue, cadastral survey, custom points, airport, police, judiciary, drinking water, telecommunication, banks…. The list goes on and on. A respondent challenged the blogger: Can you name an organisation where there is no corruption? The long list even includes private sector companies; a big steel company reportedly swindled people by promising free design service for anyone using the iron rods they produced. In another case, a person bribed four staff members in Lalitpur District Court for four years, at the rate of Rs. 100 every 15 days. During the hearing, the rate went up to Rs 1,000—or the prosecution would be further delayed. There are also stories of heroes, though they are rare, fighting the system. One speaks of travelling from Simra to Birtamodh four times to get his passport made. Though he had to bear enormous costs in terms of time, money and effort, he speaks with pride of not having to bribe anyone in the process. There are also heroes at the receiving end. A new recruit at the Bagmati Zonal Commissioner’s Office during Panchayat days who dared not to take bribe was forced to quit his job after four months on fabricated charges. A bus owner narrated a story of being forced to ‘deposit’ Rs 1.05 million for importing two new buses after he refused to pay Rs. 400,000 up-front in bribes. He still hasn’t gotten his deposit back.
Many speak of their susceptibility, guilt, and helplessness due to urgency, impending costs and consequences of not paying bribes. One person speaks of still being “scared” after being “threatened” long ago. There are few who dare to name the corrupt officials; a large majority prefer to remain anonymous, possibly due to impending dangers, with indirect references of the offices and officials.
One respondent compares corruption with sex. Obviously, corruption is like sex: it takes place between consenting adults, in privacy, in darkness; children rarely indulge in corruption. He poses a dilemma, “No one will believe in me if I say I have not have sex, if I say yes, I still have difficulty in explaining.” One blogger challenges the person, “Please, do not just speak of others taking bribe money, please, feel frank of you taking bribes as well.” Another speaks of a puzzling experience while getting his driving license in Jhapa. He joined the driving institute which guaranteed the driving license after a payment of Rs. 10,000 fee for 10 hours of driving. He failed the driving test miserably, but still managed to get the licence.
Some people offered possible reasons behind the high level of corruption—low salary, impunity, political protection, illiteracy. The problem of corruption is so pervasive and ingrained in society that every illiterate, uneducated guy thinks that all educated, literate people are corrupt; without paying bribes they cannot interact with them. One post laments, “What is the point in changing a few parts, when the whole system itself is corrupted?” The rotten-mango theory does not work in Nepal. When the whole crate itself is rotten, the exercise of plucking out one or two good mangoes from the crate is futile.
Another blogger loses his patience. “What you people are describing is direct corruption—bribery that is directly visible to the naked eye. You have not seen the scale of indirect corruption like embezzlement of public funds, budgets, low quality
construction works, state capture and organised crime going on in procurement, public tendering process and son on.”
Another blogger points to the Nepali culture of bribing. He remarks, “Why blame public officials, it is us who prefer not to stand in the queue and want to get our job done quickly either by using source, force, nepotism or bribery.” “How many times have you been into a temple and not prayed the god to do something in your favour?” In a society that believes in bribing the gods, how can it refrain from bribing a mortal human? At the supply side, there is a competition for bribery and on the demand side there is self-reinforced nihilism - if I do not take bribe and stay honest, no one will believe me; if I do not take a bribe someone else will. We do not complain about marginal bribes; they are a problem only when we have to pay out significant amounts.
The currency of bribery varies. In the police station, while securing an insurance claim, a person speaks of having to fill police vehicles’ gas tanks. A man speaks of his friend who was caught ‘red handed’ by the police and had to deposit his expensive mobile with the cops, only to get it back after paying Rs. 10,000 in hard cash. The currency of corruption could be sex as well.
Let me end with an interesting bit of irony in one of the mission reports brought out on March 12, 2007. Under invitation from one of the Nordic embassies in Nepal, an anti-corruption mission team visited Nepal to take stock on anti-corruption and integrity in “New Nepal”. At the airport, one of the members of the mission was asked to pay ‘speed money’ to receive faster service from the Immigration Office, which he flatly refused. Now, I wonder what the anti-corruption mission team members were thinking as they returned!
(Manandhar is an anti-corruption expert, currently working as the national consultant on political economy analysis with UNDP)
narayan manandhar nama@wlink.com.np
Posted on: 2010-08-25 08:17
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