The corruption watchdog Transparency International Rwanda’s (TI-RW) 2020 Bribery Index released on Thursday, January 28, has revealed that officials involved in issuing construction permits and traffic police officers are at the top of the list of service providers that take bribes. The Rwanda Bribery Index is an annual publication by TI-RW to establish experiences and perceptions of this specific form of corruption in the country. Presenting the findings, the Program Manager Albert Rwego Kavatiri, explained that in the service sector, soliciting a bribe from those seeking a construction permit comes at the top scoring 61 percent in 2020 as compared to 33.8 percent in 2019. In Traffic Police soliciting for a bribe was at 12 percent in 2020 up from 9.07 percent in 2019, according to the findings. “Although all the attention has been diverted to fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, this has not stopped the prevalence of corruption in some areas especially those that are dealing with the general population in mitigating the spread, like traffic police,” he said. In the public service area, Kavatiri also mentioned is Girinka – One Cow per Poor Family Programme where bribery was at 50 percent. The watchdog also listed the private sector where business operators who pay a bribe so that their substandard products are allowed on the market stand at 19 percent. Utility bodies like the Water and Sanitation Corporation (WASAC) were also listed, with the prevalence of bribery there increasing from 3.58 percent (in 2019) to 5.40 percent (in 2020). Local government has not improved much from 2019 where soliciting for bribes was at 3.58 percent but has increased to 5.40 percent in 2020. A whopping 54.3 percent of those queried said that they had paid a bribe related to business. Overall, the average bribe has dropped from Rwf450,000 in 2019 to about Rwf150,000 in 2020. Why bribe Kavatiri explained that their research was keen to find out why people pay these bribes. “We found that 48 percent of the people who paid bribes wanted to speed up processes while 33 percent said that it was the only way to access a service. 11.60 percent said that they wanted to avoid problems with authorities,” he said. However, he explained that 15.30 percent of those queried said that they were paying a bribe to access a service that they did not legally deserve while 3.70 percent wanted to avoid paying the full cost. Commenting on the report, the Chief Ombudsman Madeleine Nirere touched on the Corruption Perception Index 2020 launched by Transparency International where Rwanda’s score has increased from 53 percent to 54 percent saying that the fight against corruption cannot be left to the government alone. “We are still the fourth least corrupt country in sub-Saharan Africa and the first in our region. Only the governments political will, however, would not be enough to win the fight. This why we thank Rwandans and all partners including Civil Society Organizations, media, and many others who strive to help the government,” she said.
