TIB survey says 84pc service-seekers fell victims of corruption; 71.9pc have to pay bribes; ACC chief says graft is more than what survey revealed
Over 84 percent households in Bangladesh became victims of corruption while receiving services from government and non-government institutions between June 2009 and May this year, revealed a Transparency International, Bangladesh (TIB) survey.
Most people became corruption victims at the judiciary, according to the survey. However, frequency of bribe taking puts law enforcement agencies on top of the chart of most corrupt service sectors.
The survey also revealed 71.9 percent households directly paid bribes for services. It says on an average each household paid Tk 4,834 in bribes during the said period.
A staggering 88 percent of households that sought service at courts said they had experienced different types of corruption and harassment at the judiciary.
Law enforcement agencies, land administration, and National Board of Revenue stood second, third and fourth in the list of most corrupt service institutions with 79.7, 71.2 and 51.3 percent of the service-seeking households saying they became corruption victims.
The survey titled “Service sector corruption: National Households survey 2010” was conducted on 6,000 households and the results were revealed yesterday. The households shared their experience of 13 service sectors.
“This is not the full picture of corruption in the country; this is just a part of the picture. Prevalence of corruption is more than this survey revealed,” said Anti-Corruption Commission Chairman Ghulam Rahman.
“The corruption the survey reflects is the corruption at lower level involving the experience of ordinary people. Higher level corruption must be included in the survey for having a comprehensive picture,” he added.
According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics there are 3.012 crore households in Bangladesh and the survey estimates that these households paid Tk 9,591 crore bribes during the survey period. The estimate was made since each of 71.9 percent households paid on an average Tk 4,834 in bribes.
The household survey is totally an independent TIB survey, having no connection with Transparency International. It aimed at knowing the nature and rate of corruption at different government and non-government service institutions through the experience of households.
The survey has been done every two years since 1997. It revealed corruption almost doubled in the judiciary since the last survey while corruption in land administration, NBR, and power sector also had a sharp rise.
However, corruption at law enforcement agencies, health, education, and banking sectors and at non-government organisations dropped since the last survey.
TIB Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman, former JU vice-chancellor Prof Kazi Saleh Ahmed and JU Prof M Kabir were present at the result unveiling programme which was presided over by TIB trustee M Hafizuddin Khan at the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies auditorium in the capital.
JUDICIARY
About 11 percent of the surveyed households that received services from the judiciary paid an average Tk 7,918 bribe each.
Households that sought service from the High Court paid on an average Tk 12,761 each for services. They paid on an average Tk 6,598 and Tk 6,178 each at magistrates’ and judges’ courts.
Usually lawyers, court employees, court clerks and brokers take the money to hasten or postpone hearings, for withdrawing and destroying case documents and influencing the judgement.
LAW ENFORCEMENT
About 20 percent of the total surveyed households went to different law enforcement agencies during the survey period.
According to the survey, about 2.6 percent of the service-seeking households bribed the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) to avoid getting “killed in crossfire”. Police took bribes for filing and not filing general diaries and cases, submitting or not submitting charge sheets, arresting or not arresting criminals and for not torturing detainees in their custody.
A number of household also complained of extortion by law enforcers at bus, train, launch terminals, highways, pavements, village and town markets.
Of the households that faced mass arrests, around 89 percent had to pay on an average Tk 4,045 each to avoid harassment. Even services like police verification or clearance certificates required on an average Tk 731 each.
LAND ADMINISTRATION
Around 28.4 percent surveyed households went to the land administration for service.
Households had to bribe Tk 21,836 each for leasing or getting allocation of land while deed registration, land survey, mutation, withdrawing and searching for documents and land development tax required an average bribe of Tk 8,374, Tk 6,860, Tk 3,556, Tk 1,514 and Tk 825 each.
The bribes were paid for tampering with the size of a piece of land, distributing and leasing land to government loyal people, political influence, imposing of extra tax, destroying evidence, dilly-dallying and the selection of fake landless people.
AGRICULTURE
About 95 percent of the households who sought agricultural services had to pay on an average additional Tk 314 each for getting fertiliser. However, 85.9 percent of those households did not receive fertiliser on time.
At least 78.1 percent had to pay on an average extra Tk 207 each for getting a pack of seeds. However, 12.0 percent received substandard seeds, 10.6 percent did not receive them on time, while 3.8 percent used political influence to get the seeds.
About half the service-seeking households had to pay additional money for opening bank account to get government subsidies while 46.5 percent did not get the subsidy on time.
The government had fixed Tk 10 for opening a bank account for farmers.
