South Africa Most Corrupt Country in Africa – Survey

Corruption is on the rise in Africa, with South Africa topping the list of countries where citizens believe the problem has got worse in the last year, said a Transparency International survey released Tuesday.

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According to the report, 83 percent of South Africans interviewed felt that corruption had increased, with Ghana and Nigeria also among the worst-affected nations.

The survey was done in partnership with Afrobarometer which spoke to 43,143 respondents across 28 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa between March 2014 and September 2015 to ask them about their experiences and perceptions of corruption in their country.

A majority of Africans perceive corruption to be on the rise and think that their government is failing in its efforts to fight corruption; and many also feel disempowered as regards to taking action against corruption. In Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Liberia and Ghana citizens are the most negative about the scale of corruption in their country.

Across all 28 countries surveyed, the police, business executives, government officials and the courts were all perceived as corrupt, with 75 million people estimated to have paid a bribe in the past year.

The survey also said that during the deadly Ebola outbreak in Liberia and Sierra Leone, corruption may have contributed to the slow government response.

“In both of these countries there are very high bribery rates and the public sector is perceived to be affected by extensive levels of corruption,” said the survey.

It said 58 percent of all the people surveyed conducted across sub-Saharan Africa believed that graft levels were on the rise.

On the plus side, Botswana scored well, with 54 percent indicating that their government was doing well in combating graft.

Only 20 percent of South Africans said they felt the same.

South Africa has been rocked by high-profile corruption scandals in recent years, including lavish public spending on renovations at President Jacob Zuma’s private homestead.

“People are outraged, they see this huge spending as part of government corruption,” David Lewis, director of Corruption Watch, a local anti-graft organisation, told AFP.

Madagascar ranked bottom, at nine percent, on the government’s commitment to fight corruption.

“Corruption creates and increases poverty and exclusion,” Transparency International head Jose Ugaz said in a statement.

He said whistleblowing was key to fighting graft, but people were scared to come forward as they felt it was too dangerous (or) ineffective.

BELOW ARE SOME DIAGRAMS FROM TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL ON CORRUPTION STATISTICS IN AFRICA.

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Fig 1: Percentage of people who believe corruption has increased over the past 12 months

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Fig 2: HOW CITIZENS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA THINK CORRUPTION HAS CHANGED OVER THE LAST 12 MONTHS

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FIG 3: HOW CORRUPT ARE DIFFERENT INSTITUTIONS AND GROUPS IN SOCIETY?

 

When looking at the results from each country, large proportions of citizens in Benin, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone think that their public sector institutions are affected by high levels of corruption. In these countries, on average across each of the public sector groups, half of the population or more said that they thought most or all are corrupt.

In contrast, citizens in Botswana, Cape Verde, Lesotho, Mauritius and Senegal perceive there to be very low levels of corruption in the public sector institutions. On average, less than a quarter of respondents said that most or all officials in these public sector institutions are corrupt.

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FIG 4: IS THE GOVERNMENT DOING WELL OR BADLY IN FIGHTING CORRUPTION.

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FIG 5: HOW MANY PUBLIC SERVICE USERS PAID A BRIBE IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS?

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FIG 6: CAN ORDINARY PEOPLE MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION?

 

NIGERIANS REACT

kellyhart (livefyre account)
Let this people not even dare do this. How can they plan to remove Nija from her Position, we are the defending champion, number 1 and so it should remain!

goodservant (livefyre account)
West and their propaganda, in just six months Nigerian has move from the most corrupted country in Africa to third most corrupt country while in the reality everything is nose-diving backward, from Economy to Energy(power) to rule of law and the rest of it, can can someone explain to me the criteria they use to measure this and get the results.

LukesonOguchiLuke (livefyre account)
Must they always cheat us in everything? Even corruption that is known to be a native of Nigeria, they still could not make us number1. I disagree!!! Nigeria is number 1

moribund_Nigeria (livefyre account)
I disagree

What is your opinion on this survey?

You can download the full report here.

Image Credit: Transparency.org

Part of this article originally appeared on VanguardNgr

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Francis Nwokike

Francis Nwokike is the Founder and Chief Editor of The Total Entrepreneurs. A Social Entrepreneur and experienced Disaster Manager. He loves researching and discussing business trends and providing startups with valuable insights into running a profitable business. He created TTE to share ideas and tips to help entrepreneurs run and grow their businesses.