Zimbabweans believe corruption levels in the country have increased over the past two years with the health sector cited as the most corrupt, a Transparency International (TI) report shows.
By BATANAI MUTASA
TI recently released findings of a Global Corruption Barometer which said 62% of Zimbabwean respondents paid bribes over the last year.
The barometer ranks countries according to perception of corruption levels and found Zimbabwe to be highly peculated.
A country or territory’s score indicates the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).
The TI report placed Zimbabwe fifth on a list of the most dishonest African counties with a score of 21. Sierra Leone is the most corrupt African country, TI said.
“Seventy-seven percent of Zimbabweans think corruption has increased over the last two years. Sixty-five percent of the respondents said they thought the health sector was highly corrupt,” the report said.
The report noted that women giving birth in local hospitals had been charged $5 every time they would scream as a penalty for raising a false alarm. Zimbabwe and other corrupt countries were advised to adopt radical measures to weed out the practice.
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“Countries at the bottom need to adopt radical anti-corruption measures in favour of their people. Countries at the top of the index should make sure they don’t export corrupt practices to underdeveloped countries,” the TI index chairperson José Ugaz said.
The global survey this year included 175 countries and reported that no country was clean, with more than two-thirds scoring below 50.
“Corruption is a problem for all countries. A poor score is likely a sign of widespread bribery, lack of punishment for corruption and public institutions that don’t respond to citizens’ needs,” it added.
The list of the top 10 most corrupt countries in Africa was as follows: Uganda (10), Equatorial Guniea (9), Angola (8), Cameroon (7), Mozambique (6), Zimbabwe (5), Lybia (4), Kenya (3), Liberia (2) and Sierra Leone (1).
