In general terms, bribery means exchange of cash, material or goods in return of a favour that is otherwise impossible or hard to attain. The world is constantly evolving and so is the wealth gap between the rich and the poor. So when people realize that they can have more through corrupt methods such as bribery, Bribe may be in the form of money, goods, property rights, shares, emoluments or other pleasures.

Bribery impacts the economic progress and development of a nation adversely. It creates unequal opportunities amongst people in areas of education, employment etc. Government offices are thriving spaces for offering/receiving bribery. Anti-corruption laws in the country keep a check on bribery. If we try to find a single person in this entire world who has never received or given a bribe, it is highly likely that we are going to be disappointed. It shows that bribery is most common than we think.

Bribery is around us and is prevalent in all the little and big things. Bribery has a harmful impact on the growth of a country. It hinders the development of the economy and the country as a whole. In fact you even bribe your child with a chocolate or two to get the work done. Bribery thus starts from the household itself. When a child will see his or her parents offering bribe, what outcome do you expect. Our children are under the influence of this kind of work since their childhood & we cannot expect better from them. We must have come across many activities every day in which some or other kind bribery is involved. A good example that everyone has seen in their daily life is bribing the traffic police when breaking the law by either not following the rules or having something illegal about your vehicle.

Usually, we see bribery with the police and they accept it out of greed. Bribery is everywhere and no place in our life has gone untouched without it. Bribes are very common in the world and it takes place every hour, every day around the world. People in higher authorities with the government or people in just higher positions lose their sense of morality when it comes to money as greed takes over them. There is a need to increase transparency in the functioning of government agencies and a strict scrutiny of the administrative and financial decisions of a government official must be taken into account. Also, declaring assets should be made mandatory for every government employee and public servant.

Bribe has so much effect on market, business & trade that there is no room for healthy competition. It has been found that companies are ready to pay the bribes since it is way cheaper than the money to be spent on research work.

We can say that bribery is an agreement between two parties mutually agreeing to collude in illegal practices. Such collusion is bound to negatively affect the nation’s economy. Bribery leads to corruption and corruption becomes a habit. The economy of that country starts getting weaker where equality of rights is not being ensured. Since people don’t get what they deserve, they end up snatching the rights of each other. Whenever we use bribery to get something done, some deserving people lose the rights they were entitled to as they might not have enough money to briber the officials. However we can classify bribery into many categories such as Bribing of Government Official, Bribery of Witnesses, Bribery of Bank Officials, Sporting Bribe, etc.

To eradicate bribery there are many solutions which the government and people must try to practice some of them are: Public Awareness, Strict Laws, Better Vigilance, Equal rights of citizens, unique system to keep eye on corruption and Heavy penalty for them who are caught in bribery case must be implemented. Parents need to behave & inculcate proper morals in their ward. Teachers in school need to explain children the importance of honesty. They must be taught that giving & taking bribes are equally punishable acts. The only immediate key to eliminate the practice of bribe is to neither demand nor give it under any circumstances.

In a nutshell, both the government and citizens must make sensible efforts of getting rid of bribery. If the citizens halt bribing each other, the government would be left with no other option than giving deserving people their rights.

Published in The Daily National Courier, May, 05 2023

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