SA firms among top 20 in bribery stakes

Johannesburg - Companies from South Africa are seen as the 15th most likely to use bribery to secure foreign contracts, according to the Transparency International website.

SA ranked 15th most likely on the 2011 Bribe Payers Index survey released this week, which covered 28 of the world's leading economies.

"The countries and territories ranked in the index cover all regions of the world and represent almost 80% of the total world outflow of goods, services and investments," the website said.

The report looked at various types of bribery including, for the first time, bribery among companies.

Countries were scored on a scale of 0 to 10, where a score of 10 indicated that companies from a certain country never bribe abroad.

South Africa scored 7.6 out of 10.

"Foreign bribery has significant adverse effects on public well-being around the world."

It distorted the fair awarding of contracts, reduced the quality of basic public services, limited opportunities to develop a competitive private sector and undermined trust in public institutions, Bribe Payers Index said.

Brazil, which forms part of the Brics alliance between SA, Russia, India and China, was awarded 7.7 and was in 14th place.

Companies from Russia and China, which invested $120bn (more than R962bn) overseas in 2010, were seen as most likely to pay bribes abroad.

The Netherlands and Switzerland were seen as least likely to bribe.