A few months ago, I travelled through central Rwanda in a coterie of Ugandan residents who for two days endlessly praised the Rwandan government for their clean and organised streets and the country’s zero tolerance for corruption.

They decried the state of corruption on their side of the border and its ramifications on the country’s economic development. In a perfect play of irony, these plaudits for Rwanda’s aggressive corruption-fighting policies came to an end when our driver’s permit was confiscated and he was charged a moderately hefty fee for driving above the speed limit.

Quickly, praises turned into indignation when his Ugandan expertise in the finesse of police “negotiations” refused to work and we had to drive 20 minutes to the Uganda-Rwanda border to pay our fines in silent acquiescence. I could hear my fellow passengers exclaim, “If we were in Uganda, we could have paid a 10,000shs bribe and been off on our way.”

This incident gave me much to ponder about the people, systems, and institutions that feed the “corruption machine” in many African states. The word has become so common on the streets that one could easily think that corruption is a feral alien beast whose origins we have never known.
Over time, the “bribe culture” has become very rampant within public offices and has now pervaded the private sector so much so that booking a doctor’s appointment or applying for schools, even with perfect grades, cannot be done without paying under-the-table bribes.

In many African countries where corruption is prevalent, people remain deprived of basic services and utilities and lack equity in access to opportunity while those who occupy civil and private offices make extra money from exorbitant bribes that either supplement their income or make up for abysmal salaries.

According to Transparency International’s People and Corruption: Africa Survey 2015 report, it was found that nearly 75 million people in sub-Saharan Africa paid a bribe between March 2014 and September 2015. Of that number, only one in ten people who paid a bribe actually reported it and in Liberia, the report found that nearly seven in ten people had paid a bribe.

We often complain about the lack of institutional accountability and weak enactment of laws that can tame this corruption beast. However, what we refuse to acknowledge is the part we play in feeding this beast and keeping it alive.

All things considered, this is a complex issue that should take into account many recommendations on improving progress on anti-corruption measures: ethical leadership standards, severe penalties for those who flout the law, institutional compliance of anti-corruption legislation, auditing of due diligence in public and private businesses, and grassroots education on anti-corruption measures.

However, we have to realise that, with all or other things being equal, every time we pay a bribe or buy into a corrupt transaction, we perpetuate the same flawed culture we like to complain about.

There has been a lot of frustration on the lack of progress against corruption across the sub-Saharan Africa region. Corruption indices continue to focus on top-down measures that target central and local governments’ roles in expunging corrupt systems while ignoring the vital role that people at the grassroots can play in shifting and eradicating the corruption culture.

This cultural shift would require that we at the bottom of the totem pole be ready to deal with the alternative to this system: that we be ready to pay fines when charged by authorities, stand in queues for services to be delivered, or only access transparent opportunities that are conducted ‘over-the-table.’

Given time, I hope that individuals, civil society organisations, or government institutions can create online or mobile accountability platforms, such as India’s ipaidabribe, that allow people to anonymously report incidences of corruption, seek legal counsel, or file claims against public and private businesses or officers.

Corruption remains a great impediment to economic growth on the continent but each time we refuse to pay a bribe, we become one less person keeping the corruption machine alive.

Featured image of “Cold Water” by Frank Dwuye, courtesy of Jim Tuttle.