Businesspersons are not only the ones most susceptible to bribes, they also condone bribery, a recent survey of residents in a municipality in the Kuala Lumpur suburbs showed.

The study, involving some 1,000 ratepayers of the Selayang Municipal Council, noted the "obvious need for special emphasis on educating businesspersons, particularly among the Chinese", based on its findings that this group mostly condoned and committed bribery.

While slightly more than one-third of the respondents felt there was a need to bribe, half of them, mostly Chinese Malaysians and higher income earners, felt that bribery helped in getting faster approval for permits, licences, processing complaints or other things, the survey found.

"This is regardless of whether they condoned such practices. The proportion (36.7 percent) was also slightly higher among those who own businesses," stated the survey conducted among local residents in Selayang Baru and Bandar Baru Selayang, which have a combined population of 164,000 people.

The findings were released last week at the "Putting local council governance under the spotlight: Is local council governance up to the mark?" forum organised jointly by the Malaysian Institute of Management and anti-corruption watchdog, Transparency International.

On whether it is okay to bribe, more business owners (22.3 percent) replied in the affirmative compared with non-business owners (13 percent). The same pattern was established for the higher-income earners as opposed to their lower-income counterparts.

Such a response from business owners may be due to the fact that as businesspersons themselves, they were more likely to condone corruption, the findings elaborated.

Shopkeepers and hawkers were much more likely to condone corruption compared with users of local council services and homemakers as the former two groups tended to bribe officials with the hope of ensuring a 'smoother operation' for their businesses.

Costs passed on

In all, 14.5 percent respondents had offered bribes to government officials, with the Chinese being more than three times likelier than the Malays to have offered bribes.

Out of the one-third respondents who were approached for bribes, half the Chinese Malaysians, who were also businesspersons, complied.

"If this attitude continues, the lower income groups will probably be forced to absorb the costs of bribery which will inevitably be passed on to them by the business community engaged in bribing the authorities," noted the survey.

The study was based on a strata sampling of 250 respondents each from among users of local council services, hawkers, shop owners and households in the two areas.

Respondents numbered 979, comprising 582 Malays, 261 Chinese, 125 Indians and 11 others (Bangladeshis and Indonesians) in the 30-39 age group, with men outnumbering women 684 to 295.

Copies of the survey have been submitted to the local council, Housing and Local Government Ministry, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Dr Rais Yatim, Anti-Corruption Agency, Road Transport Department and police.

The local council has yet to comment on the findings.