Dr. Bahaa Helmy Writes: Confronting Tip Extortion to Combat Corruption

“God keep him… may the names live on… may he grow up in your prosperity.” With these words, the clerk at the health office greeted Mr. Omar, who had come in to register the birth of his newborn son, his face beaming with joy and happiness at obtaining the birth certificate of his first child. While the two were talking, Mr. Ashraf came in holding the ID card of his late father, visibly grief-stricken, asking for a burial permit for his ailing father, who had died in hospital, as well as a death certificate. The employee greeted him with words of condolence and sympathy and asked the first man to let him complete the burial permit procedures first, in what appeared to be a humane gesture.

After the burial permit had been approved by the competent health inspector, the family of the deceased asked about the death certificate. The employee told them that “the system is down” and promised to do what was necessary to print the death certificate as soon as possible and to call them by phone, asking them to pay a sum to top up his phone because his credit had run out, and he received fifty pounds. He then went back to registering the newborn, used the same method, and received another fifty pounds.

The question arises: does it appear that soliciting bribes and extorting citizens in exchange for providing their services at some government offices extends across a person’s entire life, that is, from the moment their birth is registered until the date their death is registered?

Paying a gratuity or baksheesh may be a way of life for many Egyptians in various professions, whether out of custom, etiquette or social prestige, and whether in restaurants, hotels or other places where it is given voluntarily and willingly. The exception is what many car parking attendants obtain by extorting drivers, a phenomenon that needs to be addressed and requires new mechanisms for the governorates to issue licenses to parking attendants in coordination with the competent security authorities.

The problem, however, lies in the extortion to which citizens are subjected in some government offices under the name of a “tip” in exchange for completing their services. If the payment is not made, obstacles appear before the citizen one after another, each obstacle backed by a legal reference, a ministerial decree, an administrative decision or instructions that the employee knows by heart, or the citizen is left standing in a queue that does not move until working hours are over. In some cases, an intermediary appears in the form of a worker or an office messenger who moves about whispering to citizens that their business can be completed in exchange for payment.

The person concerned who offers or presents a bribe to an employee to complete his business or to facilitate a task or a license is a briber; any employee or person entrusted with a public service who solicits or accepts a benefit, or the promise of one, in exchange for performing or refraining from performing an act of his office is a bribe-taker; and if there is a third party or intermediary, he is considered an accomplice in the crime, and all of them are subject to the rule of law.

Bribery is an epidemic that may lead to social injustice and deprive the poor or the weak of their legitimate rights. It is also a form of corruption that cannot be justified by low income, the high cost of living or any other reason.

The State has raised the banner of combating corruption and has put in place a legislative, institutional, regulatory and judicial framework. It has established the National Coordinating Committee and the Sub-Coordinating Committee, and adopted a national strategy within the framework of the international conventions that Egypt has signed to combat corruption. It has given free rein to the Administrative Control Authority, alongside many other bodies concerned with combating corruption. Every day we hear of numerous officials being caught in bribery cases, whether a minister or the head of a government department. It seems that the scale of corruption is large and deep-rooted; this is a real war in which we must participate positively, because corruption is no less dangerous than terrorism.

Many countries have succeeded in combating corruption through citizens’ awareness, adherence to values and principles, and the consolidation of the rule of law, as well as through the automation of work and reliance on the internet to complete transactions and services, as has recently been done in some government offices, and by dealing with the issue of fees by dropping fractions of a pound and solving the problem of small change. A question remains about the role of leaders and managers in government institutions and departments in combating corruption: are they evaluated on what they achieve in this area?