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Bribery widespread, Stats SA survey finds

Johannesburg - Citizens are being asked for  bribes by government officials for the services they are legally required to perform, Statistics SA said on Thursday.

The Pretoria-based agency released its survey Victims of Crime 2011 on Thursday.

"The bribes are mostly in the form of money, favours or a present."

The survey showed that since 2007, the proportion of people asked to pay bribes had increased significantly in relation to traffic fines.

"Comparisons with the previous survey indicated that bribes related to visiting a prison, pension, or bribes involving social welfare grant and identity document or passport applications have decreased," the agency said.

More than half (52.8%) of those who were victims of corruption were asked to pay a bribe to the traffic official to avoid traffic fines. This was most common in Gauteng (62.2%), the Western Cape (57.6%) and Eastern Cape (55.8%).

The second-highest bribe solicitation was for policing (21.4%), where 33.0% of corruption victims in the Western Cape paid bribes to the police. This was also fairly common in the Free State (28.9%) and Northern Cape (26.1%).

Statistics SA said other sectors where some bribes were solicited included driver's licences (15.9%) and job seekers (13.8%).
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