Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) is a survey of the general public on their experience of paying bribes. It also reflects their perceptions of corruption. The survey has been conducted since 2003 and considered to be the largest cross-continental public opinion survey focusing on bribery and corruption.
GCB survey provides information on countries with highest and lowest levels of bribery, institutions/sectors most affected by corruption, government’s effectiveness in fighting corruption, attitudes towards reporting corruption, and attitudes on what sort of behaviour constitutes corruption.
In November, 2020, Transparency International released its 10th edition of the corruption barometer for Asia. The survey presents the largest, most detailed set of public opinion data on citizens’ views on corruption and direct experiences of bribery in Asia. The survey was conducted between June and September 2020 in 15 countries, between March and August 2019 in Sri Lanka and Vietnam, between June 17 and July 17 in India with a sample size of nearly 20,000 citizens. The survey covered all 17 countries and territories of Asia in which at least a quarter of them are considered authoritarian regimes, marked by a lack of civil and political rights. As for people’s direct experience with corruption, bribery, sexual extortion, or vote-buying, etc., the results are stark and worrying. Not only that, speaking out against corruption, in most of the cases, leads to retaliation.
Major Findings of the Report
- According to the findings of the survey report, government corruption is a big problem. Nearly one in five people which accounts for 19 per cent or 836 million people paid bribe in the Asian region while accessing public services like health care and education in 2019.
- Nearly 38 per cent of people surveyed think corruption increased in their respective countries in the last 12 months, while 28 per cent think it remained the same.
- It was found that nearby one in five people paid a bribe for accessing public services in 2019. About 22 per cent, of them used their personal connections to receive the assistance they needed. Some 20 per cent used personal connections in courts, 19 per cent, in police, identity documents and utilities; 18 per cent in schools; and 16 per cent in healthcare sector. Gender differences were also noted while accessing public services.
- The report stated that bribery rates in six public services was 1/M police (23 per cent), courts (17 per cent), public hospitals (10 per cent), procurement of identity documents (17 per cent), utilities (14 per cent), and schools (14 per cent).
- The survey result finds that vote-buying is becoming a practice in the region and it is highest in Thailand and Philippines where 28 per cent voters were offered bribe in return for a vote, followed by Indonesia with 26 per cent, and India and Maldives with 18 per cent.
- The report, for the first time, highlights data on sextortion in Asia. Sextortion is the abuse of power to obtain sexual benefits or extort money in exchange for public services like health care or education. It was found that citizens in Indonesia (18 per cent), Sri Lanka (17 per cent), and Thailand (15 per cent) experience the highest rate of sexual extortion while accessing a government service. Across the region, 8 per cent people experienced sextoration.
- According to the survey report, India has the highest bribery rate in Asia at 39 per cent, followed by Cambodia at 37 per cent, and Indonesia at 30 per cent. Maldives and Japan maintain the lowest bribery rate (2 per cent), followed by South Korea (10 per cent) and Nepal (12 per cent).
- The report says that in Nepal and Thailand, the majority of citizens (58 per cent and 55 per cent respectively) think corruption has increased while a majority of citizens in China (64 per cent), the Philippines (64 per cent), and Cambodia (55 per cent) think corruption has declined. However, in the Maldives and Sri Lanka, 53 and 52 per cent of citizens respectively opened that corruption remained the same.
- As per the report, almost 74 per cent of people regard government corruption as a big problem. Nearly one in three people opine that parliamentarians are most corrupt. Some 33 per cent of people have little or no trust in the government; 27 per cent in their courts; and 28 per cent in their police.
- The report mentions the positive contributions of anti-corruption agencies with 63 per cent of people in support. Three countries—Myanmer, Bangladesh, and Nepal—recorded approval ratings for their anti-corruption agencies at 94 per cent, 86 per cent, and 84 per cent respectively. On the contrary, people in Maldives (58 per cent), Sri Lanka (57 per cent), and Mongolia (56 per cent) regarded their anti-corruption agencies as doing badly.
Key Findings with Regards to India
- This survey places India as the country with highest bribery rate of 39 per cent in the Asian region and most number of people (46 per cent) using personal connections to get access to public services. The report mentions, “Bribery in public services continue to plague India. Slow and complicated bureaucratic process, unnecessary red tape, and unclear regulatory frameworks force citizens to seek out alternate solutions to access basic services through networks of familiarity and petty corruption.”
- Some 47 per cent of people, surveyed in India, believe that corruption has increased over the past 12 months while 63 per cent believe that the government is doing well in tackling corruption.
- About 63 per cent citizens in India think that if they report corruption, they will suffer retaliation.
- Some 89 per cent people in India think corruption is a big problem and 18 per cent admit to have received bribes in exchange for votes and 11 per cent experienced sextortion or know someone who has.
- India was placed in the 80th position among 180 countries in the CPI (Corruption Perception Index) in the pervious report of Transparency International, released in Devas at the World Economic Forum.
Recommendations
As per the key recommendations of the report, governments should:
- reorganise systems to minimise discretionary powers and a more proactive role by vigilance departments, anti-corruption units, and whistle-blowers would help to curb corruption;
- empower citizens by engaging them in the fight against corruption and ensure they can report corruption without fear of retaliation by enacting and enforcing strong laws to protect whistle-blowers, and also ensure access to safe and confidential reporting mechanisms to protect civil society as well as journalists who report corruption;
- ensure easy, accessible, and proactive disclosure mechanisms for public information on priority basis;
- reduce vote-buying in elections by ensuring that election commissions and anti-corruption agencies work in tandem through an integrated approach to prevent and prosecute vote-buying;
- strengthen merit-based recruitment processes, introduce competitive salaries, streamline administrative processes, enhance preventative mechanisms, and invest in user-friendly platforms to quickly and easily deliver essential services to the general public;
- improve transparency of political financing, strengthen comprehensive regulations to reduce conflict of interest and build transparent beneficial ownership registers;
- take measures to reduce the culture of shaming and victim blaming that discourages people from reporting abuses; empower anti-corruption agencies and justice systems with the right tools to address sextortion cases; and create safe, accountable, accessible, and most importantly, gender-sensitive reporting mechanisms; and
- uphold the 2012 Jakarta Statement on Principles for Anti-corruption Agencies and the Colombo Commentary on the Jakarta Statement on Principles for Anti-corruption Agencies as part of the comprehensive framework to curb corruption that is required by the UN Convention against Corruption.
Transparency International, set up in 1993, is a non-government organisation and a global movement, which has one vision: “a world in which government, business, civil society, and the daily lives of people are free of corruption”. It has over 100 chapters worldwide and an international secretariat based in Berlin, and works “to stop corruption and promote transparency, accountability, and integrity at all levels and across all sectors of society”. An independent and not-for-profit organisation, it consists of like-minded partners across the world to end the injustice of corruption.