The curse of bribery in Africa

In the words of former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, “Corruption hurts the poor disproportionately diverting funds intended for development, undermining a government’s ability to provide basic services, and feeding inequality and injustice”. When it comes to bribery, empirical research in many African countries have also consistently found that the impoverished are more likely to pay bribes than those who are well off. Bribery is the act of offering someone money or something valuable in order to persuade them to do something for you.

This is very common both in private and public sector but it is within the public sector where the phenomenon of soliciting and paying bribes is very common and having some very harmful impact on the well-being of poor and desperate people of Africa.