Bribes to postpone disconnections

In order to avoid disconnections, customers may collude with field staff and administrative staff or be extorted by field staff to pay bribes.

Risk type: Practice

Risk driver: Internal; External

DESCRIPTION

If a customer does not pay bills, a common practice is to disconnect the customer. In order to avoid disconnections, customers may pay bribes to field staff who are supposed to disconnect them or to administrative staff to prevent themselves from being listed for disconnection. Field staff might also pressure the customer to pay these bribes in order to not get disconnected, or threaten to disconnect a customer early.

RED FLAGS

• High levels of non-revenue water
• Few re-connections in comparison to reported disconnections

KEY GUIDING DOCUMENTS

TI, WIN, 2008, Global Corruption Report 2008 Corruption in the Water Sector, Transparency International (TI) & Water Integrity Network (WIN), Berlin, Germany

TARGETED EXAMPLES

Collusion with landlord¹

Target group: Utilities

Location: New Jersey, USA

In New Jersey (USA) in 2007, a water agency employee pleaded guilty to colluding with a landlord to extract money from poor households that sought to avoid water disconnection due to outstanding bills.

FULL REFERENCES

1. TI and WIN, 2008, Global Corruption Report 2008 Corruption in the Water Sector, Transparency International (TI) and Water Integrity Network (WIN), Berlin, Germany