(Photo: Transparency International)
Among Middle East and North African countries, Egypt had one of the highest rates of bribery in its public services sector in the past year, though it also received the highest positive anti-corruption ratings, Transparency International said in a report published on Tuesday.
Although around half of the people surveyed in Egypt said that they paid bribes when they came in to contact with public services in the past 12 months, Egyptians “have more mixed views on how levels of corruption has changed, with relatively equal proportions saying that corruption either increased, stayed the same or decreased,” according to Transparency International.
Business executives and local councilors were the most corrupted categories in Egypt according to the survey.
The Germany-based anti-corruption NGO carried out a public opinion survey of nearly 11,000 adults in nine Middle East and North African countries, with the majority of people (61 percent) in the region thinking that the level of corruption has gone up over the last year. However, 15 percent considered that corruption had decreased, with 19 percent thinking that the level is unchanged.
The survey also showed that nearly one in three citizens who tried to access basic public services in the region paid a bribe.
Citizens of Lebanon, Yemen and Jordan thought that the level of corruption in their countries had “increased a lot” over the previous year.
“It’s as if the Arab Spring never happened. Leaders who fail to stop secrecy, fail to promote free speech and fail to stop bribery also fail to bring dignity to the daily lives of people living in the Middle East and North Africa. Peoples’ human rights are seriously affected,” said José Ugaz, the Chair of Transparency International.
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