Let’s beat graft with zero notes

hird of Africans paid bribes in last year” the headline screams.

Well, not scream; more of a sigh given that this is Africa and corruption is seen as endemic, so the small article was actually tucked away inside the newspaper. But still there it was: 30% of 51 000 people surveyed across 34 African countries paid a bribe in the last year, “either to obtain a service or to avoid a problem”, says the Afrobarometer report.

The lowest rate was in Botswana at 4% (comparable to Canada) and the highest was 63% in Sierra Leone (on a par with India and Cambodia), although other reports put the figure for Sierra Leone much higher.

Even more depressingly, the people most likely to be bullied into bribing officials are the poor and hungry, with one in five paying a backhander just to get medical treatment.

The police are seen as particularly corrupt across Africa, and who could be surprised after witnessing Kenyan cops pocketing watches during the Westgate shopping mall massacre? Internationally, an estimated 31% of those who had dealings with the police paid a bribe, although generally political parties are deemed the most fraudulent of all.

But what about South Africa? Well, Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer 2013 – taking in 114 000 people in 107 countries – revealed a startling 47% of the 1 000 urban South Africans surveyed paid a bribe in the last year.

Sixty-six percent of South Africans reckon the government is performing a particularly shoddy job of tackling the scourge.

So what is to be done? Given that up to 80% of us beleaguered Sefricans believe ordinary people can make a difference in the fight against corruption, how about we just start saying no, right now?

There’s a wonderful little campaign in India from non-profit organisation 5th Pillar distributing “zero rupee” replica notes bearing the motto “I promise to never accept or give a bribe”. When an official puts out his greedy hand he is slipped a zero rupee note, and quietly shamed.

So how about zero rand notes in SA then? Let’s make it mandatory that they are piled on counters at police stations and hospitals, at the entrance to Home Affairs, given out at toll booths and polling stations … and then, if necessary, handed right back again.