Parlor Spider...Step In, Little Fly

Insightful thoughts and/or rants from atop the soapbox from one who wishes to share the "right" opinion with everyone.

Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Greasing Palms Worldwide

You might be surprised to discover that an estimated 27% of people in the 95 countries surveyed last year paid a bribe to someone for something. That seems like a lot. The leader in that category is the country of Sierra Leone where an astonishing 84% of people surveyed indicated that they had paid someone off last year. Amazing. The study, done by Transparency International, interviewed roughly 1,000 people in each of the most populous 95 countries in the world and arrived at findings that would seem to indicate that bribery is accepted just about everywhere...like Mastercard or American Express.
It seemed odd to me, though, that the biggest offenders were some of the poorest countries; in fact, seven of the top nine countries are found in sub-Saharan Africa...not noted to be rolling in dough.
following the frontrunner were Liberia, Yemen and Kenya in that order (Kenya stood at 70%). There were four countries tied for the fifth spot at 62%, and all of them African. Thus, the question arises: what is an accepted form of bribery payment for these people? Such information was not forthcoming from the survey.
On the bottom (lucky for them) of the pile are countries like Denmark, Finland, Japan, and Australia, each reporting in at 1% of the interviewees paying some form of bribe during the past year.
The U.S.? Seven percent of those interviewed had paid somebody off, and this figure ties us with Switzerland for 20th place.
Worldwide, dishonesty seems to be, if not the best policy, at least one that is widely practiced.

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