The numbers on the latest Global Corruption Barometer, published by Transparency International, are in and India figures at the ninth position. Surprise, surprise. According to the number of bribes paid over the last three years world-wide, everyday corruption was found to be most rampant in Liberia, while Britain was the least corrupt. But the real surprise in the report was how rampant corruption is across the globe. One in every four respondents admitted to having paid bribes to service providers during the past year. While this may not be contrary to popular perception that bribes paid to public officials and politicians are the mainstay of most corruption scandals, exemplified by the telecom, fodder and land scams that have inundated mainstream Indian media in the last quarter of 2010, the scale is nonetheless discomfiting.
That bribery has now extended at such a large scale to institutions fundamental to countries? functioning, including but not limited to education, medical services and the judiciary, is alarming. And that India ranks alongside Afghanistan, Cambodia, Liberia, Nigeria and Iraq, in a list of countries in which over 50% of the people surveyed have admitted to paying petty bribes just adds insult to injury. But the upside is that seven out of ten respondents think that the public is instrumental in the fight against corruption and can make a crucial difference. Here?s to trusting that the surveyed sample is truly representative of the population.