Berlin.- One in three Latin Americans paid bribes in the last 12 months on basic public services, according to a study released Monday by the German NGO Transparency International (TI), which focuses on corruption in Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Peru.
The report “People and Corruption – Latin America and the Caribbean” also notes, after interviewing over 22,000 people in 20 countries in the region, that the general perception is that those practices are increasing, that governments don’t fight them with determination, and that nearly a third of those who report them suffer retaliation.
“The photography of the region is not positive because high number of citizens think that the situation doesn’t change or has worsened and because many people say that the government is not doing a good job,” Alejandro Salas, head of IT for the Americas, told Efe.
Mexico is the country where most respondents affirmed having paid bribes in the study period, with 51%, followed by Dominican Republic (46%), Peru (39%), Venezuela and Panama (38%).
At the region’s other extreme are Trinidad and Tobago (6%), Brazil (11%), Argentina (16%), Jamaica (21%) Chile ) and Costa Rica (24%).
Between the two groups figure Honduras (33%), El Salvador (31%), Nicaragua (30%), Colombia (30%) Guatemala (28%), Ecuador
The differences between this IT survey and its popular Corruption Perceptions Index are mainly because it asks about the “personal experience” of ordinary people, while the latter questions experts.
In total, two-thirds of respondents believe that corruption has increased in the last twelve months, although with considerable differences between countries – while in Venezuela 87% believe that it has grown, in Argentina only 41% perceive it as such.
Among those polled, 53% say their government is doing bad things in the fight against corruption, while 35% believe that their representatives are moving in the right direction.