I've always been fascinated by the practice of bribery in some parts of the world. Now I'm in Kenya, it's becoming a bigger part of my life than before, and I'm determined to figure out the art of bribing in this world where the practice is so commonplace yet anti-corruption activities are equally strong. So, how does it work?
To start off, I was told there is a difference between bribing/corruption and bribing/paying a service/expedition fee. In the situation where you need something done, for example, get your drivers license renewed, get a visa...etc. If you don't pay a service fee, don't expect it to get done for months as the paperworks are piled from floor to ceiling and the people are not paid enough to be motivated to do a good job. So, how do you motivate them? Pay a little service/assistance fee. This saves you days of waiting at the office and getting nothing accomplished.
How the service fee work is that when you go to the office, the clerk will pretty much tell you up front how much it will be if you want to get your thing done (unless you are a foreigner, then they may dance around a little bit, but eventually you'll know the price). Then, the fee you pay is distributed to all the parties that is involved in approving something. So in a way, everyone up and down the chain of comment honours this practice of "expedited service"...for example, if you would like to get a work permit (which is very difficult in Kenya), you may pay a little extra fee for assistance, everyone along the command chain get's paid, however, the most amazing part is, if the permit is denied at the end, then somehow, you'll get the money back from everybody. I find this very endearing about Kenyans...these are already under the table money, yet, they are still honest enough to refund when a service is not complete. THAT is something. You may ask, what about accounting and audits? how do you put these "service fees" that sometimes amounts to a few hundred dollars a pop on the book? Don't worry, they will give you a receipt so it can legally be deducted from your admin cost center.
So then, what counts as corruption? How it was explained to me is that if you got pulled over by the police for violating a traffic rule, and you bribe him to get out of trouble, then that's corruption. If you pay someone to get a job offer, that's corruption. Apparently corruption is not just local here, but has permeated into the United Nation and various large organizations. The kind of things I've heard about these supposedly altruistic/honourable institutions have been just shocking...I think flat out corruption bugs me less than hypocracy I suppose.
To start off, I was told there is a difference between bribing/corruption and bribing/paying a service/expedition fee. In the situation where you need something done, for example, get your drivers license renewed, get a visa...etc. If you don't pay a service fee, don't expect it to get done for months as the paperworks are piled from floor to ceiling and the people are not paid enough to be motivated to do a good job. So, how do you motivate them? Pay a little service/assistance fee. This saves you days of waiting at the office and getting nothing accomplished.
How the service fee work is that when you go to the office, the clerk will pretty much tell you up front how much it will be if you want to get your thing done (unless you are a foreigner, then they may dance around a little bit, but eventually you'll know the price). Then, the fee you pay is distributed to all the parties that is involved in approving something. So in a way, everyone up and down the chain of comment honours this practice of "expedited service"...for example, if you would like to get a work permit (which is very difficult in Kenya), you may pay a little extra fee for assistance, everyone along the command chain get's paid, however, the most amazing part is, if the permit is denied at the end, then somehow, you'll get the money back from everybody. I find this very endearing about Kenyans...these are already under the table money, yet, they are still honest enough to refund when a service is not complete. THAT is something. You may ask, what about accounting and audits? how do you put these "service fees" that sometimes amounts to a few hundred dollars a pop on the book? Don't worry, they will give you a receipt so it can legally be deducted from your admin cost center.
So then, what counts as corruption? How it was explained to me is that if you got pulled over by the police for violating a traffic rule, and you bribe him to get out of trouble, then that's corruption. If you pay someone to get a job offer, that's corruption. Apparently corruption is not just local here, but has permeated into the United Nation and various large organizations. The kind of things I've heard about these supposedly altruistic/honourable institutions have been just shocking...I think flat out corruption bugs me less than hypocracy I suppose.
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