My First Bribe

I bribed a government official yesterday – my first ever bribe. The Zimbabweans reading this post may now shut their mouths and massage their bruised chins from where they hit the floor. I know that everyone does it but this really was my first ever bribe, and not because I am prudish about it. I fully appreciate that I am lucky and it is unusual for me to reach several decades in age and have managed to live in this country without ever paying bribes. And I put that down to the fact that I live alone, simply and seldom travel, so don’t have the customs / passport / car travel document etc etc hassles that everyone else endures. If I did, I may well have bribed people years ago.

I do have to say though that I do actively resist paying bribes, mostly because it bugs the hell out of me that people have so easily fallen into an expectation that ‘backhanders’ should be given for every little thing they do. There was a time when bribes were a way to smooth extremely difficult or lengthy processes. Now it seems we need to bribe ordinary people just to get off their bottoms and do ordinary jobs.

In my case I had ‘no choice’ (that easy excuse): the failure to bribe would have caused me all sorts of personal paperwork problems and it was very clear from all the hurdles being thrown up that the government official I was dealing with had no intention of even blinking unless I gave him money.

So, R10, given to an intermediary to pass on (because I am chicken) suddenly produced activity and papers. It was so easy.

It worries me that it was so easy. Am I better off, as a person, for realising how easy it is to make my life a bit better with a bit of foreign cash? I think not. I can see now how so many fall into a pattern of bribing, their casual acceptance that bribing makes life easy leading to a casual expectation from all officials that accepting cash is the way to go.

Where does that leave those who do not have access to a bit of forex here and there? Most likely standing at the end of a queue that never ever shortens, or perhaps simply at the mercy of a bureaucrat who might, out of kindness, decide to simply do his/her job for nothing more than his/her salary that day.

I cannot adopt a higher moral ground here: I have corrupted myself. I did it knowingly and with full knowledge that I always had a choice to be honest, and I chose to be dishonest knowing full well that it was unethical and wrong. But I did it anyway.

And so our society unravels. What a shame.

For myself, I promise I will not fall into the easy pattern of always bribing and will continue to try and resist doing so. But I cannot promise to be a martyr, to throw my life into hellish difficulties for the sake of principle. Life’s too short, especially in Zimbabwe. I am sure that this won’t be the only time I have to bribe someone; I do it reluctantly, but I accept that I have the capacity to do it.

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, bribery, corruption, bribe, crime

This entry was posted by Hope on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 6:46 pm. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.