Corruption

As I mentioned in a post quite a while ago, Arusha and Tanzania are not without their problems, and this blog is dedicated to discussing one of those problems which was encountered a few times over the course of my dad’s visit: the problem of corruption.

Unfortunately, corruption is almost a way of life for most government officials here in Tanzania. Thankfully I’m not talking about the kind of corruption on the level of the massive government conspiracies that Jack Bauer single-handedly uncovers and rescues America from on an annual basis (unless, of course, there’s a writer’s strike), but nonetheless, having to bribe officials on a periodic basis for no apparent reason other than them wanting to extort money from you is still annoying.

The three specific government bodies prone to corruption that volunteers and travelers are most likely to come into contact with are the police, customs, and immigration. The police have not been a problem for me personally in my time here 0 - knock on wood; however, I’ve heard numerous stories of police harassing both Tanzanians and visitors alike for no other reason than to induce a bribe. The most common form of this comes from traffic officers.

I think the best indication that there is a serious problem with corrupt police attempting to pull over innocent citizens (Tanzanians, travelers, and ex-patriates alike) to induce a bribe is the fact that the government actually prints off windshield stickers that list the rights of citizens so they can use it as a reference if a police officer attempts to scare them through illegal means. In fact, just a week and a half ago Caroline was pulled over twice in the same afternoon for no apparent reason. During the first incident, tax officials, who were apparently riding with the police officer (which, by itself seems a little sketchy and obvious) tried to actually enter in her passenger door to check that her registrations were up to date. For the record, these registrations are clearly visible through the windshield, and there is no reason for anyone to ever need to actually get in the car to check them. After arguing back and forth with the officer and the tax officials, she was finally let go since, well, she didn’t do anything wrong in the first place. The second stop was actually much smoother than the first, and she received a simple reminder to wear her seatbelt without any further argument or harassment. Why she was pulled over though, especially since she was already wearing a seatbelt, I’m not sure. It could have just been a coincidence, but I tend to think that in both scenarios they were both just looking for something simple she was doing illegal (such as having an out of date registration or not wearing a seatbelt) so they could induce a bribe.

An even more common problem than the police pulling someone over is for them to wait for a bribe before letting you pass at road checkpoints on major highways. Again, while I’ve never had any personal experience with this, I’m told the process goes something like this: when you stop at the check point, the police officer will ask you a few questions, dilly-dally around a little bit, and then pretend to be unsure as to whether they can let you pass for some stupid reason. They will then at some point turn the conversation to how hungry or thirsty they are, which is your cue to tell them you might be able to ‘buy them something to eat or drink’. Most of the time this bribe is no more than Tsh 1,000 – about 80 cents – but its still annoying and, you know, illegal. Also, just a heads up: if you ever find yourself in this situation, don’t ever try and speed up the process by offering right away to give them money to let you pass. Even though this is what they ultimately want, and it might work the majority of the time, it also exposes you because you just attempted to explicitly bribe them. If they then decide like being a real a-hole, they could threaten to take you to jail - with the law actually on their side this time - which means you will wind up paying a much more sizeable bribe to get yourself out of the situation (unless you really piss them off or have absolutely no money, don’t think you will ever actually be going to go to jail).

Not nearly as common, but still possible, is for the police to stop you on the streets to try and harass you in an attempt to secure a bribe. While I’ve heard of this happening before, it’s always been a friend-who-knows-someone-who-heard-about-a-guy type of a thing; it hasn’t happened to anyone I know personally. Nonetheless, it can happen, especially toward the end of the week when the police are looking for ‘weekend money’, as the phrase goes here. Therefore, it’s best to just keep a low profile and avoid cops, especially on Fridays.

While the bribe-seeking police are a major annoyance, what’s of far greater frustration to me and other volunteers alike are customs and immigration officials. To illustrate, I’ll share two stories from when my dad was visiting. The first occurred immediately upon my dad’s arrival, when he was trying to enter in the country. For those of you who are not aware, electronics are significantly cheaper in the US than almost anywhere in the world, including Europe and Australia. As it turns out, the printer at The Umoja Centre crapped out about two weeks before my dad was coming to visit, so I volunteered to have my dad bring over one from the States at a fourth of the price for which we could have gotten one in Tanzania. This was all good in theory, but there is also an import tax on a number of items that are coming into the country, even through passenger luggage, which gives customs officials the leverage they need to detain passengers carrying such items and induce a bribe. This is exactly what happened to my dad. Why do I say induce a bribe, rather than the other possibility that it is actually to pay the import tax? Well, for one thing, when my dad asked how much the import tax would be, the officer responded, “How much can you afford?” Second, my dad was able to bargain him down from his initial price by a sizeable margin, which shouldn’t really happen when there is supposed to be a set import tax. Also, there was a noticeable absence of any official paperwork, and while my dad didn’t ask for a receipt, I have heard from others that when you do ask for one, the price you must pay mysteriously jumps about 400%. In spite of all this, my dad had a much easier time with customs than a group of volunteers who arrived on the same flight as him who were trying to bring medical supplies into the country. As of the time we left, they still hadn’t progressed beyond the inspection table, and it looked as if they were going to be there for quite a while longer. And just to illustrate that these aren’t isolated incidents, Carley, the owner of the hostel, also experienced something similar when she arrived back in Tanzania from a trip home to Australia. As she told it, the customs officials went through all her luggage specifically looking for things for which they could charge her customs tax. When they couldn’t find any, they specifically asked her, “Where are all the presents you’re bringing into the country?” I think these, and other stories I’ve heard, are more than ample evidence that customs officials specifically seek out travelers and tourists bringing presents for friends / family and supplies for NGOs into the country to try and induce bribes from them.

Perhaps even worse than the customs experience, though, is immigration. In my four months in Tanzania, the only time I’ve ever had to deal with immigration official was during my dads visit. It happened three days before he was supposed to leave when officials from immigration decided to show up to the hostel. The immigration office has a couple of guys on staff who’s job it is to go around to local NGOs and other organizations dealing with volunteers to check over their visas and ensure they are on the proper volunteer visa, as opposed to a travel visa. They don’t come around often apparently; but when they do, they again really only have one purpose in mind: to induce a bribe. This is exactly what happened when they came to the hostel. Fortunately, the hostel is extremely good about doing everything necessary to obtain volunteer visas for its residents. This can be an extremely tedious process, but their thought is that if immigration officials show up and find a bunch of volunteers without proper visas, they will start showing up every week for bribe money. So everyone was good to go from a visa perspective, but that didn’t stop them from at least trying to find a reason for a bribe.

It turns out that one of our residents from Australia obtained her volunteer visa from the Tanzanian embassy in Australia, rather than emailing their information to the hostel and having everything arranged here. This was reason enough, apparently, for the immigration officials to try and tell her she didn’t obtain the proper visa, and that she was volunteering illegally. If I didn’t know any better I might have thought they had a legitimate point, but having talked with numerous volunteers about this process, I’ve learned that this is what they do: go around to organizations not to simply ensure everyone is legal, but with the specific goal of finding people who aren’t so they can extort money from them. And just like what happened at the hostel, if they can’t find anyone who is illegal, they will do their best to try and find a way to make someone think they are illegal. As a general policy, if you know your rights and argue with immigration for long enough (and you can do this only when you know your rights) they eventually start to back down, which is exactly what happened in this instance. The Australian woman still had to go down to the immigration office, but after talking with the head of the department and shedding a few tears, they eventually let her off the hook (again, you know, because she didn’t do anything wrong).

The two experiences with customs and immigration were especially bad because they involved Tanzanian officials specifically seeking out people who have given their time, effort, and money to help the people of this Tanzania. Being a volunteer, it not only makes you angry, but also causes you question why you’re even bothering to help at all. Thankfully though, you only have to show up to work the next day and see the people you’re helping to remember why you’re here and regain motivation. Nonetheless, corruption remains a major problem in Tanzania, and is particularly trying for volunteers who are attempting to help make the same country better that is deliberating attempting to take advantage of them.