Lawmakers across the Asia-Pacific region need to do much more to support whistle-blowers; and governments must keep promises to combat corruption, including their commitments to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. So says the anti-corruption pressure group Transparency International. The campaigners spoke to nearly 22,000 people about their recent experiences with corruption, for a report, People and Corruption: Asia Pacific, part of the Global Corruption Barometer series.
In China, nearly three-quarters of the people surveyed said corruption has increased over the last three years, suggesting people do not see that the Chinese Communist Party’s offensive on corruption is working.
José Ugaz, chair of Transparency International, said: “Governments must do more to deliver on their anti-corruption commitments. It’s time to stop talking and act. Millions of people are forced to pay bribes for public services and it is the poor who are most vulnerable.”
Thirty-eight percent of the poorest people surveyed said they paid a bribe, the highest proportion of any income group.
Ugaz said: “Without proper law enforcement corruption thrives. Bribery is not a small crime, it takes food off the table, it prevents education, it impedes proper healthcare and ultimately it can kill.”
Police top the list of public services most often demanding a bribe; just under a third of people who had come into contact with a police officer in the last 12 months saying they paid a bribe.
People said that the most important action to stop corruption is speaking out or refusing to pay bribes. But more than one in five said they felt powerless to help fight corruption, TI reports. In general, TI found diversity in the corruption risks across the region, but in every country surveyed there was scope for improved approaches to corruption prevention, according to the campaign group.
About the TI survey
The surveys were carried out face-to-face or by telephone between July 2015 and January 2017. Some 21,861 people in 16 countries, regions and territories across the region were spoken to. They were sampled and weighted to be nationally representative of all adults. Visit http://www.transparency.org/research/gcb/gcb_2015_16/0/.
