Almost 71 per cent of households of the country are victims of corruption in the service sector and each family on average has given bribes of Tk 6,636.
In 12 months, from December 2020 to last year’s November, the total amount of bribe was Tk 108.30 billion. The people have paid bribes on 17 service sectors. The most corrupt sector in this period was the passport office and law enforcement agencies.
This information was revealed in Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) ‘Corruption in service sector: National Household Survey 2021’ report in a press conference held at the TIB headquarters in the capital’s Dhanmondi on Wednesday.
The speakers said that on average every citizen of this country is giving Tk 671 in bribes.
In the report, corruption in total of 17 sectors were shown. In the survey conducted on service consumers, 15,454 households took part. This period of corruption investigated in this survey was 1 December 2020 to 30 November 2021. Bribe, forcefully taking ones money, fraud, negligence in work, nepotism, time wastage etc was accounted as corruption.
The TIB report read, the highest 74.4 per cent of households have been victims of corruption through the law enforcement agencies. In second position is the passport sector, where 70 per cent of households have faced corruption. The next most corrupt sectors are BRTA, judicial services, health, local government organisations and land services.
A total of 72.10 per cent of the survey participants said that they won’t get service without bribing. They give bribes to avoid harassments or problems. If the head of the household has a disability, the likeliness of corruption and bribery increases.
People between the ages of 18-35 have been lesser victims of corruption. People between the ages of 56-65 have fallen victim to corruption the most.
Even though they have faced corruption, 79.22 per cent of the participants didn’t complain. Out of them, 55 per cent didn’t complain out of fear of hassle or harassment. There is corruption everywhere, that’s why 49 per cent didn’t feel the need to lodge a complaint.
Almost 19.5 per cent of the participants have lodged complaints of corruption. But on 72 per cent of occasions no steps were taken against those complaints.
Earlier, in 2017, TIB conducted a survey on corruption in the service sector. Overall, the number of households affected by corruption has increase from 2017 to 2021. In 2017, it was 66 per cent. By 2021, it has increased to 70.8 per cent.
In 2017, each household had to give a bribe of Tk 5,930 on average. By 2021, it has increased to Tk 6,636.
In the press conference the speakers said, during this period, more people living in rural areas have been victims of bribery. The lower-income people had to bear the burden of corruption comparatively more. As sectors like passport, BRTA, local government organisations haven’t been completely digitalised, the amount of corruption has increased.
TIB’s executive director Iftekharuzzaman said, “Overall, corruption at the service sector has increased. This picture of corruption in the service sector is alarming. The extent of just ‘petty corruption’ at the service sectors is huge. We can assume that in big purchases and big projects the extent of corruption would be much higher. The government knows how to root out corruption. But we don’t see them in use. We hope that the government organisations will take this report positively and take steps to reduce corruption.”