An overwhelming majority of Zimbabwe’s businesses perceive the police, state procurement board and tax collector to be the country’s most corrupt government agencies, according to a survey conducted by three industry bodies.
A recent Transparency International report estimated that Zimbabwe loses $1 billion annually to corruption.
A ‘Business Transactional Corruption Survey’ commissioned by the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI), the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) and the Small and Medium Enterprises Association of Zimbabwe (SMEA) looked at businesses’ perception of 16 government agencies as well as municipal departments responsible for business registration and inspection.
81 percent of the 403 firms — 381 from Harare and 22 from Bulawayo — polled between July and August 2015, believe the police are “always corrupt, almost always corrupt or mostly corrupt,” the survey found.
Sixty-four percent of the respondents found the state procurement board to be corrupt, followed by 52 percent who had an adverse view of the Central Vehicle Registry (CVR) and 48 percent for Zimra.
“Respondents were asked what their perception of various government departments or agencies was, regarding the level of corruption, on a 5-point scale from ‘always corrupt’ to ‘hardly ever’ or ‘never corrupt,’ the report,dated March 2016 but only obtained by The Source this week, says.
“Based on these summed proportions, the police, followed by the state procurement board, are deemed the most corrupt (81 percent and 64 percent, respectively), followed by Zimra and the city health department (48 percent each).”
The Ministry of Transport’s Vehicle Inspection Department (VID) follows closely behind with 47 percent of surveyed businesses perceiving them to be corrupt, the same rating as the Immigration and Customs departments.
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