05 Global Corruption
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National surveys on corruption in francophone Africa Marie Wolkers Transparency International (TI) developed household and private sector questionnaires and commissioned local institutes in Madagascar, Morocco and Senegal to carry out the surveys in 2001. The aim of the research – coordinated by TI national chapters – was to produce data that could shed light on the nature, causes, types and frequency of corruption in the countries surveyed. Another important goal was to design a model for national corruption surveys that could be used in other countries in order to produce consistent and comparable data at the international level. These studies combined a quantitative and qualitative approach. The surveys were carried out by OSIPD and ECR in Madagascar, LMS and CSATMO in Morocco and Orgatech in Senegal. The institutes were free to choose the most appropriate methodology and to adapt TI’s questionnaires to the context of each country. One-on-one interviews were conducted anonymously with heads of households and company representatives. In each country a sample of more than 1,000 individuals was interviewed for the household survey, drawn from both urban and rural areas, and between 400 and 800 representatives of the formal and informal private sector were interviewed for the company survey. Corruption was seen to be one of the principal social problems facing all three countries. In Morocco, 87 per cent of respondents saw it as one of the country’s worst problems and 94 per cent of companies viewed corruption as an important obstacle to the development of the private sector, second only to the rate of taxation. In Madagascar, 64 per cent of private sector respondents rated corruption as the principal problem they face. In Senegal, 40 per cent of company executives considered bribery necessary to obtain a public contract, while most respondents believed that vote buying is a common practice and that access to certain public services is often conditional upon ‘grease payments’. Most respondents perceived corruption to have worsened, or at least not improved, in the last few years. In Madagascar, 75 per cent of respondents said that grand corruption had increased in the previous five years and more than 60 per cent said this of petty corruption. In Morocco, a significant proportion of both households and companies said that corruption had increased in the previous three years (33 per cent and 40 per cent, respectively, for grand corruption and 41 per cent and 44 per cent for petty corruption). Nearly 90 per cent of respondents in Senegal observed that corruption is widespread and reported hardly any improvement since the recent change of government. Data and research
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