Pay or Delay, It's Your Choice

Many business owners, small or large, are frequently faced with the decision whether to pay bribes in the interest of the business. A million-dollar deal might be delayed by a customs officer in a Third World country who is stopping the movement of your goods unless he receives a payment of $100. So what to do? Pay or delay.

If you don’t pay you might have the future of your company and employees at stake but if you do pay the bribe you will be encouraging further corruption apart from  possibly committing a crime.

But you don’t have to be a business owner to be faced with this dilemma. I once arrived at Jakarta airport with my passport,  unbeknown to me, one-day past the three-month validity rule. The immigration officer in charge gave me the option to pay $100 will not enter, of course I paid.

You can say no, nobody is holding a gun at your head, but the consequences to your business could be significant with your rivals quite happy to pay the bribe and take your future contracts away.

Most corruption that I have come into contact with is from low ranking officials who are just supplementing a rather poor salary rather than people of real power who have bank accounts in Switzerland, although the latter do exist in most countries

Looking at it from a different point of view, it is not your job to change the culture of countries where bribery and corruption is endemic. You just have to write the cost of these “extra payments” into the price of the deal. Making a stand against local corruption will ultimately not help your employees.

You, as an employer have got the moral obligation to look after your company and employees and standing up against local customs, though possibly morally correct, is of no benefit to the business.

Bribery doesn’t only exist with corrupt officials in Third World countries. I can remember a local ship surveyor who was quite lenient at times interpreting the rules for our company’s older ships, but who always received two cases of his favorite whiskey at Christmas, complements of the company.

Two of the main reasons why people pay bribes are, “To avoid trouble with the authorities” and “To speed things up” and according to Transparency International in their new Corruptio Perceptions Index 2010 the three most corrupt countries are Somalia, Burma and Afghanistan although there are many more with a similar rating.