29th October 13
The Guardian Reporter
Tanzania’s police force has the highest number of bribe cases in the entire East African Community, according to the East Africa Bribery Index 2013 (EABI) released yesterday and when it comes to offering bribes on their own volition, Tanzania’s general public also ranks second (11%) only to Burundians (13%).
Along with the Tanzania Police, the Judiciary and Tax Services also rank in the top ten of the most bribe prone institutions in the country. Unfortunately, it is to be noted that similar ranking of peer institutions in the other EAC countries was also horrendous.
The report said that majority of respondents in Tanzania and Kenya paid bribes to hasten up service, those in Burundi said they paid bribes because it was expected while in Rwanda, majority of the respondents said they paid bribes to access a service the respondent did not legally deserve, and in Uganda, majority of the respondents admitted to paying bribes because it was the only way to access the service.
The Tanzania police continued with adverse performance both in the country and across the EAC. While the aggregate index indicates Tanzania police leads other sectors in the country with 72.9%, followed by Judiciary (38.3%) and Tax Services (36.9%), is also ranked as the EAC worst bribery sector followed by Kenya Police (70.7%), Burundi Police (64%), Uganda Police (60%) and finally Rwanda Police (54%).
This year, police took the first five bribery positions on sector and organizational ranking. This is the first time a single institution or sector performs uniformly poor across all the countries. Ironically, Tanzania Police is one of the six Government agencies beneficiaries of the United Kingdom DfID’s £8.8 million for Strengthening Tanzania Anti-Corruption Action (STACA).
Further, according to the EABI 2013, only one in ten Tanzanians will report or complain if they encounter bribery cases that occur while pursuing entitlements from duty bearers.
‘Bribery remains the key challenge hampering Tanzanians from accessing due public services…” says Bubelwa Kaiza, Executive Director of ForDIA.
ForDIA is the administrative host of Tanzania Transparency Forum (TRAFO) which coordinates EABI in Tanzania along with Transparency International chapters in Rwanda, Kenya, Burundi and Uganda acting similarly in their respective countries.
In terms of country comparisons, the survey showed that Burundi’s bribery status worsened moving two spots up to take position two with an aggregate of 18.6% compared to last year. The aggregate likelihood of bribery was highest in Uganda where a citizen seeking state services faces a 26.8% chance of bribe solicitation. This was the same position the country held last year, only then it had a higher aggregate.
Tanzania (12.9%) came in at third while Kenya was fourth (7.9%) with each moving down a spot, again with relatively lower aggregates. Rwanda remains at position five but was the only country in the region that had an increased aggregate, 4.4%, up from 2.5% in 2012. However the propensity to offer a bribe was lowest in Rwanda at 1%.
The index attributes the bribery cases to weak civic competence of the citizenry together with unfriendly governance hardware and software within the public sector bodies. As such, the citizenry is urged to support anti-corruption efforts by resisting bribery forces which is the only way Tanzanians can rightfully hold the authorities to accountable.
‘Law enforcement and justice system are very key institutions in this country and region, we should not let bribery compromise on this’, he noted.
THE GUARDIAN