Have you ever paid a bribe?

[Beebo]

A friend of mine's boss used to do a lot of business with highly-placed people in Nigeria, such business having always been facilitated by liberal backhanders. Then there was a coup, with the incoming generals sworn to do away with the country's long-established and deep-rooted culture of corruption. The question very soon became, were they actually for real? Should you or shouldn't you start bribing the new lot? Would they be offended if you did? (Or were they even now seething with resentment that you hadn't?) It was a real problem.

Even their football teams are at it. Surely some money changed hands with these scorelines.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23240104

 

[thom]

This BBC article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23231318 has a list of what percentage of people have paid a bribe in the last year in different countries. It indicates 5% in the UK. That really seems high to me - unless you count the Christmas tip to the dustmen as one, I have never paid, nor been asked for a bribe in this country.

Have you paid one, or at least been asked?

A tangential comment - the BBC I'm sure could do a story on how they themselves end up paying bribes to facilitate journalism in different parts of the world. Except of course that its kind of illegal for them to do so...

 

[GrumpyGregry]

yes - but not in the uk, wouldn't do it these days, I'd get fired.

 

[bof]

I used to have to temporarily import what was then high-tech equipment into third-world countries and then, unlike the UK, bribery was rampant and impossible to avoid. I tried not to pay, but I paid a bribe to get a bond back in Egypt once - it was £50 or so, or lose around £1000 for sure (which would doubtless have been shared between the bank and customs officials concerned). On the other hand I remember bringing a removable disk drive, when they were the size of a car hubcap, into Colombia. The customs officer was clearly looking for a bribe - she'd taken one off the passenger in front of me - but by spilling the rest of my suitcase contents over the floor and generally acting like a gormless wally, she soon lost interest.

Most interesting example I saw was in my hippy traveller days, crossing from Pakistan to India. A pair of Germans were caught with dope (bringing dope into India ffs - talk about coals to Newcastle). Anyway,one of them panicked and brought out a big fistful of dollars as a bribe. The customs guy said "No, that's far too much" and kept just $20.

Incidentally in Rawlpindi I could not find a cheap hotel room. After being turned down about a dozen times, I asked a hotel owner who spoke decent English what was going on. He explained that they had to register me with the local police, which involved a high "fee", the police claiming that the hotelier would charge double to foreigners. This meant that the hotelier would make a loss on the room at the published rate and so the easiest thing was to say "no". Realising I would never get a room otherwise and the Sheraton was not an option on my budget, I asked the guy what he would have to pay and got him to add it on to the room price.

 

[slowwww]

Not sure that it constitutes a bribe, but when holidaying in the Caribbean I’ve found that a 'tip' on the first day of US$50 to the Concierge and the Head Barman/Restaurant Manager means you never wait for service and always get the best tables!

 

[ArDee]

Never paid one, never been offered one.

Same here

 

[MontyVeda]

I once bribed a copper with £80, otherwise he'd have taken me to court... he instigated the bribe and called it a Fixed Penalty for some reason... and it was in the UK of all places!

 

[Globalti]

Happily when we export to Nigeria we are almost always selling to the owners of the companies so bribes are pointless. It's when you are dealing with the chemists and the factory managers who they employ that bribery ("dash") raises its ugly little head. With them, the promise of a case of frozen catfish or chicken at Christmas is often sufficient.

Probably my funniest bribe was when I visited Gadani Beach in Pakistan where ships are broken up by hand. It's in Baluchistan, which is out of bounds to foreigners supposedly. We were stopped on the road by a Police officer in shalwar kameez, turban, bandolero and a massive curly moustache who "arrested" us then climbed into the car for a ride up the road while he proceeded to unload all our wallets, in the most charming way possible.

 

[ArDee]

A colleague was working on a project in Nigeria. He went along to a construction company to award them the contract for the building works and had to bribe the manager’s secretary to let him into see the manager to award the contract.

I also worked on a quotation for project in Poland; we were informed that we didn't get the contract as there was insufficient allowance in the project for extras.

 

[asterix]

My employment once depended on a bribe*. It turned out that one of our directors was bribing a customer's director to give us the business at very advantageous rates to us. It had been going on for a considerable time.

Once out in the open, we were obliged to cut our rates to one seventh. Not long after, our customer removed the entire business from us and gave it to our worst enemy a competitor. Both directors were sacked and innocent staff were made redundant. A mixed blessing for one who got an excellently paid job in the oil industry afterwards. The downside was that his new job was so stressful if gave him alopecia. As the business shrank I upped and left.

IME there is plenty of corruption in the UK but it is remarkably well disguised, sometimes as mere incompetence. It's like treason that 'doth never prosper what's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason'.

* I can mention it now: it was so long ago.

 

[Globalti]

Spot on; there's plenty of bribery and corruption going on in the UK, it's just a lot more subtle than in other countries. In the end it's counter-productive because it means contracts aren't being awarded for the right reasons and companies are defrauding their governments and shareholders. The clearest example of how corruption wrecks economies is Greece.

My street is used as a cut-through by drivers racing to avoid traffic lights on the main road. Ten years ago residents, with support from the Police, almost succeeded in getting the street closed to through traffic but at the last minute the scheme was mysteriously dropped. Residents suspected a certain county councillor but had no proof, he always claimed to be our biggest supporter but others had their suspicions. Then last year a former very senior Police officer told me who had wrecked the scheme.... yes, our friendly county councillor. My belief is that it was as stupid as someobody (a fellow Mason?) in the street complaining that they would have to drive an extra half mile to the golf course. I'm still hoping to find the answer and perhaps revive the scheme when the councillor retires.

 

[Brains]

My Dad was elected as a councillor, standing on 'stop building bungalows,' ticket as in the 1980's there was a rash of people building pebble dashed bungalows in north Cornwall, he wanted all new buildings to fit in with the area and be granite faced.

He was offered a bung of £30k to approve one little estate, when 30k was probably about the building price of a single property at the time.
He turned them down, not surprising for a highly decorated ex soldier, he made the bribe know to all, which caused a lot of problems.
the end result was he eventually stood down as a councillor the houses got built, but they were faced in granite and were not flat packed bungalows

 

[G3CWI]

Have you paid one, or at least been asked?

I may be in a position to assist you with that. What's it worth?

 

[Licramite]

Depends on how Official the bribe is, I've been involved 106 planning agreements , which is in essence a bribe the builder pays to the council to allow him to build something he should be entitled to build in the first place, - the council say its to pay for ammenities that would be needed to accomodate the new development (like a housing estate may need an an extra school to accomade the kids, or a road may need widening) - well thats fair enough you say, - but they don't have to spend the money (and more than offen don't) on what they say its for. - so its a bribe to the council in effect.

 

[dellzeqq]

I'm with Licramite on this one. 106 agreements are bribes, and they're big bribes - I've seen one council trouser £750,000 off one job, and I've worked on a job where the entire project, some £3.4million was 106 money. The bizarre thing is that non-profit organisations like housing associations are shaken down as well.

Bribery is rife in construction. Architects stand out by virtue of their incorruptibility (I write this in all seriousness), but one small electrical contractor told me not so long ago that the jobs that I got him were the only ones where he wasn't shaken down. Privatisation of procurement hasn't helped here - there's a whole new brand of leech milking the NHS and education.