Bribes for speedy connections or repair work

Customers voluntarily or involuntarily make illegal payments to secure or expedite services.

Risk type: Practice

Risk driver: Internal; External

DESCRIPTION

Customers may make small illegal payments, also called ‘facilitating’, ‘speed’, or ‘grease’ money, to secure or expedite services from the utility, such as household connections, repair work, and information.¹

Customers may offer such payments themselves to get preferential treatment or field staff may pressure them to make payments by delaying work without reason and indicating that customers will end up waiting if they do not pay.

Such practices create a negative reputation for the utility and lead to inefficiencies in coordination of work.

RED FLAGS

• Certain customers receive preferential treatment.
• Each technician has his or her ‘personal system’ to schedule connections and repair works.

KEY GUIDING DOCUMENTS

TI, 2009, The anti-corruption plain language guide, Transparency International (TI)

TI, 2011, Kenya National Water Integrity Study (NWIS ), Transparency International (TI)

Davis, J., 2004, Corruption in Public Service Delivery: Experience from South Asia’s Water and Sanitation Sector. World Dev. 32, 53–71

TARGETED EXAMPLES

Speed money for connections²

Target group: Utilities

Location: Kenya

Some users said that speed money was useful to get connections and repairs done and may even help to reduce usage amounts reported when reading meters.

Speed money in practice³

Target group: Utilities

Location: South Asia

• [Informal payments for public service delivery … and payments to junior staff of public utilities by household members] are made in exchange for expediting applications for new connections; quick attention to water supply and sewer repair work; the falsification of water bills; and the provision or ignoring of illegal service connections.
• Customers who need service repairs or who desire a new service connection – services to which they are entitled – have the option of repeatedly requesting assistance, perhaps involving senior staff who can apply pressure on line workers to respond, or they can pay “speed money” directly to employees. Such payments […] for a new connection are typically made in field offices or in customers’ homes, and virtually always in cash. Those unwilling or unable to pay speed money often do not seek help for genuine service problems, knowing that agency staff will ration their time among bribe-paying customers.

FULL REFERENCES

1. TI, 2009, The anti-corruption plain language guide, Transparency International (TI)
2. TI, 2011, Kenya National Water Integrity Study (NWIS ), Transparency International (TI)
3. Davis, J., 2004, Corruption in Public Service Delivery: Experience from South Asia’s Water and Sanitation Sector. World Dev. 32, 53–71