A new report released Wednesday by Transparency International- Rwanda, the global civil society organisation leading the fight against corruption indicate that bribery prevalence per institution is still topped by Traffic Police with a 9.07 percentage despite a major drop from 14.29 percent in 2018.
According to the f Rwanda Bribery Index (RBI), an annually-conducted perception survey which establishes and reports experiences and perceptions of Rwandans regarding bribery in the country, 78.5 percent of the Rwandan population currently considers corruption to be low in Rwanda while 81.9 percent admire and commend the government’s efforts to prevent and fight corruption.
The number of Rwandans who directly or indirectly demanded or offered bribe while interacting with an institution, according to the report, declined to 18.5 percent from 20.4 in 2018.
After Traffic Police, second on the list is Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) with a prevalence of 7.08 followed by Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) schools at 5.13, the report said.
It said that over the last 12 months, 86.8 percent of people who encountered bribery did not report the case.
Fear of self-incrimination which prevailed at 22.3 percent is the top root cause of low reporting. Among other causes are the lack of information about institutions to report to (16.3), belief that the official to report to is also corrupt (12.7) and fear of being intimidated (9.9).
On the other hand, the findings expose that 55 percent of reported cases did not see any action, while 35 percent of victims were not satisfied with the actions taken which further discourages reporting.
By computing the research findings, the index estimates the cost of bribe over Rwf 17 billion (About 18.8 million USD) in 2019.
While, the police force is commonly identified as one of the most corrupt governmental institutions, an anti-corruption approach with wide alliances between the public, private and civil society sectors, can make a huge difference, the report said.
CU/abj/APA