The department of immigration and passports is the most corrupt services sector in Bangladesh, says a new household survey of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB).
The survey reveals that about 78% of people have to pay bribe for service at the passports department, followed by 75% at law enforcement agencies, 61% at education sector, about 60% at the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), about 53% at the land administration, 48% at the judiciary and 38% at the health sector.
The findings of the survey, tilted ‘Corruption in Service Sector: National Household Survey 2015’ was unveiled by TIB in Dhaka yesterday.
TIB’s national household survey 2015 shows that about 68% households of the country had been the victims of corruption while availing of services and 58% of them had to bribe officials in this regard. Every household, on average, has to pay a bribe of 4,538 taka ($56.72) annually.
It reveals that an amount of 882.18bn taka ($1.10bn) was exchanged as bribe in service sectors in 2015, which was 0.6% of the country’s GDP in fiscal year 2014-15 and 3.7% of revised budget of the same fiscal.
Although the corruption scenario and rate of harassment remain the same in services sectors, the survey says, the service-receiving households paid 150bn taka in 2015 more than that of 2012 in bribes.
About the reasons of corruption, about 71% respondents of the survey replied that if they had not paid the bribe they would not have got the expected service.
The household survey was conducted during November 2014 to October 2015 covering a total of 15,840 households from both rural and urban areas. About 15 service sectors were brought under the study.