A survey by Transparency International (TI) has ranked Burundi as East Africa’s most corrupt country for the second year in a row, with the region’s police, revenue authorities and the judiciary rated as the worst offenders.
The survey puts Rwanda as least corrupt of member states in East African Community.
Burundi had a bribery prevalence rate of 37.9 %, from 36.7% in 2010, while Uganda had a rate of 33.9% from 33% last year. Tanzania’s bribery rate rose to 31.6%from 28.6% previously.
Kenya, whose anti-corruption body is investigating a number of high profile graft cases, recorded a bribery prevalence of 28.8%, down from 31.9%. Rwanda fell to 5.1% from 6.6% in 2010.
“The police, revenue authorities and the judiciary across the different countries were poorly rated in the regional aggregate index,” TI said.
Police in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi appeared on the list of the ten most bribery-prone institutions in East Africa.
EAC bloc is jointly marketing the five member states to potential investors. Graft is among the main concerns that businesses cite as a hurdle when setting up shop.
The index examines five indicators: likelihood of encountering bribery, prevalence of bribery, its impact, the average bribe size and the total value of bribes paid to an institution out of the total paid to all organisations.
The World Bank says increased costs for businesses due to corruption, as well as poor infrastructure or insecurity, are “invisible costs” that can hit competitiveness with other regions in the world.
Leave a Reply