Judiciary most expensive to bribe - report

By SOLOMON ARINAITWE

IN SUMMARY: Transparency report. As Uganda overtakes region to win the gold medal in corruption, a new report shows average size of bribes citizens pay. The Judiciary is the most expensive, with Shs600,000 per bribe, while payouts to local councils average ‘only’ Shs22,000

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Individuals working in Uganda’s judicial system have fallen afoul of graft rankings in a new report which shows that it is in this public sector where the highest bribe rates are asked in Uganda.

A survey of 1,449 respondents randomly picked from across the four main regions of Uganda, revealed the perception that judicial officers accept an average sum of Shs594,137 as the standard sweetener to smoothen the country’s notoriously slow wheels of justice.

The 2012 East African Bribery Index compiled by Transparency International notes that: “the Judiciary and land services attracted the highest actual amount of bribe per respondent.”

The non-governmental organisation, which monitors and publishes information on corporate and political corruption around the world, found that across Uganda’s borders tax services in Burundi, banks in Rwanda, land services in Kenya and local government councils in Tanzania are institutions where one is most likely to pay the highest rate in bribes.

This survey upholds similar findings of the Uganda’s own Inspectorate of Government’s Second Annual Report on Corruption trends in 2011 in Uganda which ranked the Judiciary second to only the Police in bribery rates in Uganda.

Transparency noted that: “the extra and illegal levies on the judiciary in particular may result to lower access to judicial services and diminished confidence on the institution”

Rejects findings

But yesterday, an exasperated Mr Elias Kisawuzi, the spokesperson of the Judiciary, said the institution rejects the findings of the survey. “Do judges live the most posh and affluent lifestyles for them to say that paying a bribe to the Judiciary is the most expensive in Uganda?” Mr Kisawuzi asked.

Police was ranked at fourth on the “average size of a bribe” at Shs105,515.

Mr Samuel Kyomukama, the Commandant of the Professional Standards Unit, a body established to check corruption in the Police, however, acknowledged that the “report is an indicator that something is wrong which we realised sometime back.”

Mr Kyomukama, said by focusing on the Police, the Bribery Index “is trivialising the corruption issue”.

Source: Daily Monitor (31/08/2012): http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Judiciary+most+expensive+to+bribe+++report/-/688334/1491008/-/y79oaa/-/index.html