I love these quantitative surveys, with country to country comparisons, they're a great antidote to anecdote, rumor and prejudice.
Al Ahram correctly reports that the overall score for Egypt puts it in the seriously corrupt countries of the world but,as with most news it reports, it is too lazy, too stupid or too politically correct to go further. In the case of this report the devil is in the detail
The bulk of the report is not based on on the views of Europeans but on surveys of citizens about corruption in their own country and therefore this data paints a much darker view of Egypt and of ‘things’ getting worse. Al Ahram ignores this.
The view of al Ahram that Morsi is to blame is laughable. He was only in ‘power’ for 12 months and, as the report shows, corruption has been getting worse over a much longer period. For example, Egypt has fallen 44 places since 2005. Compared with its benighted neighbors it is less corrupt than only poor and corrupt Syria and prosperous and corrupt Lebanon. Poor Jordan is 50 places higher than Egypt and Tunisia is 40 places higher. Any journalist with two minutes spare could have found this out.
Things are getting worse for Egyptians and, according to themselves, nearly 40% say corruption has increased a lot and about 27% a little, with the rest saying it was the same or better.
The most corrupt institution in Egypt, in the opinion of Egyptians, is the media which might explain why al Ahram did not go into detail.
Almost 80% thought the public service corrupt with only 8% thinking it not a problem.
92% thought that big interests ran the government either completely, or to a large or limited extent. Egyptians aren’t as poorly informed as some think.
Only 20% thought the government effective in fighting corruption so maybe there are still a few fools out there because when did anyone hear of a successful (charged, convicted and imprisoned) prosecution for corruption.
The report goes on with very high perceptions of corruption for medicine, the courts, the education system, the police, the parliament, political parties (around 75% each), the military (45%). Egyptians thought NGO”s and religious institutions least corrupt. About 50% thought business corrupt. This latter seems well shy of the mark but maybe magnates owning corrupt newspapers and TV stations has been a good investment.
Everyone knows that bribes are part of Egypt but this report gives hard evidence of how often-everyday people have to pay it and to whom.
In 2013 about 40% had paid a bribe to a registry or government body and a similar number had paid a bribe to the well-named filth. Education and medicine were the other big bribe takers with over 20% of Egyptians extorted by these helping professions (who also seem to help themselves). Utilities were real graspers with 26% of Egyptians paying them a bribe. Land services is also in this group who extort the public whilst being paid to help them. The Judicial and tax staffs trail the crowd of criminal bribe takers and I found this surprising until I thought that relatively few Egyptians even get to court, especially after bribing the police.
With all this corruption and lack of faith in almost all major institutions in Egypt you wonder when the next revolution will arrive.
But it gets worse.
By way of comparison Afgans think their institutions less corrupt than do Egyptians. Afganis also believe to a greater degree that they can change corruption than do the sanguine Egyptians. You might think Afgans are on their own, they are not. Poor benighted Iraqis are usually twice as confident than Egyptians that their institutions are free of corruption even though their bribe paying was the same, or only slightly less, than in Egypt. In that other, and local, hell hole Libya, whilst they are big bribe extorters, believe their major institutions to be considerably less corrupt than do their pacific Egyptian friends.
The news story in al Ahram, and for Egyptian voters, should have been: Egyptian corruption is worse than the hell holes of the earth but the big difference is that the people in hell have more trust in their institutions than do Egyptians and report more confidence that they have the power to change things for the better. Now that is a story but not one which would be welcome in Egypt or at least now welcome by those who have power.
With all this heady third world corruption it’s a bit easy for western arrogance to get a boost so, to prick this, the figures for the UK are a sad, sobering story that tells us that others have the same problems and almost to the same degree.
In the same 2013 report 65% of UK subjects reported that corruption had increased a lot or a little in the past year. 61% of UK respondents believe that corruption in the public sector is either a problem or a serious problem. 61% of Britons believe a few big interests run their government either entirely or to a large extent. If you add in the somewhats the figure rises to 91%. 62% of Britons believe that government efforts to combat corruption have been very ineffective or ineffective. Bribes, smaller than in Egypt, are surprising with substantial bribes to the judiciary and the education service. On this last measure the UK is better than Egypt. About 2/3rds believe politicians and the media corrupt. No surprises here. About a third thought their religious institutions corrupt. In Egypt people have greater trust in their religious institutions. The stand out and unexpected horror stories in the UK are business – which 28% think corrupt and the judiciary which almost 1 in 4 Britons thinks is corrupt.
Very sobering. Maybe there will be a revolution or military coup sometime soon by a UK military that is as trusted in England as the Egyptian Military is in Egypt.
There is always the objection to such reports: lies, dammed lies and statistics. However, Transparency is a respected NGO with a standard methodology and questions applied worldwide. It doesn’t claim to be perfect but it is the best available information on corruption (and as a proxy for social trust and confidence) in the world.
The Transparency International website is super-sophisticated with lots of flash graphics and well worth a visit if you are bored with time on your hands.
In fairness to al Ahram a feature article which followed the above news report appeared in their weekly and that one seems to have been written by a person who can both think and write:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/4720/17 ... gift-.aspx. Good luck to him.
