DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – A new report released on Tuesday by an anti-corruption watchdog shows that on average, almost a third of the people in nine countries surveyed in the Middle East have had to pay a bribe to access some kind of public service.
The poll by Transparency International also found that courts have the worst bribery rate out of six services that were surveyed.
The watchdog interviewed nearly 11,000 people – or about 1,200 people in each of the nine countries – and found that bribery was especially rampant in Yemen.
In the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country, 77 percent of respondents said they had to pay a bribe to access public services. The interviews in Yemen were carried out before the start of March 2015 Saudi-led airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Shiite rebels, after which the country’s crisis descended into war.
Around 50 percent of people surveyed in Egypt, Sudan and Morocco said they paid bribes for public services.