The myth that the majority of South Africans pay a bribe on a daily basis has been disputed by the Ethics Institute, a local non-profit, public benefit organization, which has just released its 2016 South African Citizens' Bribery Survey report.
The Manager for Organizational Ethics Development at EthicSA, Kris Dobie, said here Thursday that the survey had exposed some assumptions claiming that everyone is paying bribes in South Africa.
"We have seen that a lot of people are saying 'No' to bribes and half of the people have never been asked for a bribe in their lives," he added.
About 43 per cent of participants said they paid a bribe because they did not have a choice, while 36 per cent said they did it for the sake of convenience, 8.0 per cent saw it as "not a big deal" and 2.0 per cent paid out of concern for their safety.
Dobie said that 60 per cent of those asked to pay bribes refused to pay, and the "majority of those say they will say 'No' and mostly that is for moral reasons. So people are taking a moral stand against bribery".
The study was done in five of South Africa's nine provinces sampling 4,553 randomly selected participants across all income spectrums.
Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK