All told, considering how much I've traveled you'd think I'd have experienced this before. I've certainly been scammed -- overpaid a few dollars for something or brought by a taxi driver to a store he gets commission for. I generally don't mind that so much.
But today I got a taste of the corruption that is rampant in Africa, and I'm sure it's one of many times it will happen to me this summer. It's pretty infuriating. The problem is, I'm white. One look at me and unscrupulous "officials" see an opportunity for extortion. They look for any violation of any real or made up rule and then essentially make you pay a bribe to get out of it.
That's what happened today. We were driving in downtown Dakar and were stopped by a policeman for some sticker we were missing. He apparently saw me in the car and knew we had money. He first asked my friend for papers and said we were missing something my friend had never heard of. He asked us to pull over and walked away with our papers. We sat there in the heat until my friend finally got out an went up to the guy to talk to him. The guy wanted a bribe to not make us pay a fine. My friend offered to pay the fine. The policeman didn't want to enforce the law, he wanted a bribe. Since my friend was a local, he managed to talk our way out of it. If it had been just me, I'd have had to pay the fine or sit there for hours.
I read a story recently about a journalist who followed a Guinness delivery truck from the capital of Cameroon to a small town across the country. This exact sort of thing happened an unbelievable amount of times, contributing to their trip taking about 10x longer than it should have. This is one of the major things that makes business so inefficient across Africa. Once it becomes part of the culture, it's a really difficult thing to get rid of. I've talked to a lot of people about it, and no one seems to be able to come up with a good answer.
But today I got a taste of the corruption that is rampant in Africa, and I'm sure it's one of many times it will happen to me this summer. It's pretty infuriating. The problem is, I'm white. One look at me and unscrupulous "officials" see an opportunity for extortion. They look for any violation of any real or made up rule and then essentially make you pay a bribe to get out of it.
That's what happened today. We were driving in downtown Dakar and were stopped by a policeman for some sticker we were missing. He apparently saw me in the car and knew we had money. He first asked my friend for papers and said we were missing something my friend had never heard of. He asked us to pull over and walked away with our papers. We sat there in the heat until my friend finally got out an went up to the guy to talk to him. The guy wanted a bribe to not make us pay a fine. My friend offered to pay the fine. The policeman didn't want to enforce the law, he wanted a bribe. Since my friend was a local, he managed to talk our way out of it. If it had been just me, I'd have had to pay the fine or sit there for hours.
I read a story recently about a journalist who followed a Guinness delivery truck from the capital of Cameroon to a small town across the country. This exact sort of thing happened an unbelievable amount of times, contributing to their trip taking about 10x longer than it should have. This is one of the major things that makes business so inefficient across Africa. Once it becomes part of the culture, it's a really difficult thing to get rid of. I've talked to a lot of people about it, and no one seems to be able to come up with a good answer.
3 comments:
I must admit, your problem is a common one. It usually helps to drive right past if you can (I do this often-especially when I am confident I have all the papers). Also it helps to pretend you are on the phone with one of their superiors (especially since you are a foreigner) they get pretty scared.
All in all, while I understand your anger, maybe you should understand the dire conditions that make this extortion necessary. You should admist you anger make the extra effort to understand that there is little other choice for poorly trained and poorly paid police officers, some of whom may even be carrying out the orders of some more corrupt bosses. An officer who must rely solely on tips to feed his family must make this his livelihood, you see. It points more to the reason why your work is very important....these experiences will be medals in your development experience later on. I hope they inspire you to good works and not be the sources of resentment in your heart long after this experience is over :P
Peace
Unfortunately it's not just Africa. Same type of things happened to us in Mexico and sadly we have a name for it in India: "white tax" Hang in there!!
Agree with Soham. This occurs frequently in Argentina (so much so when I first visited I wasn't allowed to drive alone), happened to me personally in Brazil, often in Mexico, exists but slightly more opaquely in China & Taiwan, and most other non-Western countries.
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