Continental Shift

How to (not) pay a bribe to a police officer December 16, 2009

This is part of extra tips and helpful hints, information that didn’t make it into the first edition of Continental Shift. If you enjoyed this article, please check out the book. You may find it useful.

One of the interesting facets of moving from a developed to a developing country is the increase in your brushes with corruption, ranging from the endemic to the casual. You may encounter blatant or subtle requests for ‘facilitation payments’ or ‘convenience fees’ in applying for visas and entry or exit stamps, in getting your housing sorted, in having your phone or internet hooked up and so on. In many cases, the only difference between these ‘fees’ and the ones charged by companies in developed countries is that the developed-country companies have formalised the notion of paying extra for faster or better service whereas in developing countries, it’s still an informal payment on the side to the official you’re dealing with (and may or may not make any difference to your actual treatment).

One encounter you are almost sure to have is with traffic police. Consider this recent example:

Cop: You know why I’ve pulled you over? You crossed the solid white line back there, you’re not allowed to exit there.
Driver: Oh, we didn’t know. We’ve been doing it for six months, exactly like every other car around us. But yes, the white line is solid, so fair enough, we’re in the wrong.
Cop: OK, it’s a 300-ringgit fine, and you have to go to the traffic office to pay it. Or I could just give you a warning.
Driver: Gosh, a warning would be great, thanks. [300 ringgit? Is that likely?]
[long pause]
Cop: So, you want I write this fine, or you want the warning.
Driver: The warning, please, thanks for that. [Oh my friend, I'm afraid your casual corruption cannot stand against the endemic corruption I encountered in Libya. You have no chance]
[long pause]
Cop: What’s going on? You want to go pay 300 ringgit at the traffic office, or you want a warning and you decide? [see that? He doesn't actually come out and say "and you decide how much"]
Driver: I’d like the warning. [You are now holding both my driver's license and my ID card. In Libya, this would mean I'd screwed. Here, I think I'm OK]
Cop: Look, you want to pay the fine or get the warning?
Passenger: This could go on all day. Ask him for his officer ID number.
Driver: We’re noting your number plate. What’s your officer number?
Cop: Why do you want to know that?
Driver: Well, you’re asking us for a bribe, aren’t you? [In Libya, this would not work. Corruption is endemic; complaining to a higher authority would just result in having to pay more bribes]
Cop: No, I wasn’t, it is my poor English.
Driver: OK, then, well, we’ll take the warning then. [And now you are the one who is screwed because not only did you probably lie to us about how much the fine actually is but you already offered us the warning and we already accepted it and you can't work out how to go back on that and fine us to punish us...plus you've proved you're scared of getting reported]
Cop: …OK. Consider yourself warned.
Driver: k’bye.

If you’re moving to a developing country, you need to have a plan for how you are going to handle the police; demands for bribes in other areas aren’t quite so bad (it can screw up your visas though), but the police have a fair amount of on-the-spot power so you need to play carefully. Here’s some tips:

1. Talk to other expats.
Find out what level of corruption you can expect. In the example above, there wasn’t a lot of risk – at most 300 ringgit (…maybe) and the inconvenience and wasted time of having to find the traffic office and queue up. In Libya, it was a bit more iffy, but certainly countering open demands for money by requesting an official receipt and refusing to pay unless you got one worked for at least one expat. On other occasions, the cops would just lean through the window and grab a mobile phone or other valuables. More on that in a moment. In more dangerous countries, refusing to pay up endangers your health. This is not really a bribe, more mugging by armed official.

2. Differentiate between ‘easier to pay’ and ‘must pay’
You’ll hear all sorts of stories from expats about paying bribes after being pulled over by the police, but you can’t work out your plan of action (to pay up or not, and if so, how much) without getting to the bottom of whether these expats were forced to pay or just decided to throw money at the problem. A lot of the time, when expats go on about how they ‘had’ to pay a bribe to a traffic cop, it translates to ‘couldn’t be bothered with the alternative’.

3. Decide your approach
It’s up to you, but I strongly, strongly urge you to stay firm and refuse to pay bribes where your health and safety are not at threat. Every time an expat decides it’s easier to just chuck some cash out the window, the level of corruption in the police shifts from bribes-accepted to bribes-expected to bribes-demanded to bribes-better-get-paid-or-I-will-hurt-you. That makes life harder for everyone in the long run.

Just take the fine – half the time, you won’t even have to even when you’re in the wrong, as in the example above, because the cop will have talked himself into a hole. Mentally prepare yourself for that worst-case scenario, and the whole passive-resistance game becomes easier (and even somewhat fun).

4. Stay calm and safe
While in the situation, stay calm, be patient, and keep smiling. In the example, the driver was polite, friendly, and just plain dumb (the passenger was pretty pissed, but she wasn’t doing the talking…but she was the one who would have to go find the traffic office and pay up and she was prepared to do that). Absolutely do not threaten or abuse the cop (or this might happen). Better to pretend you simply don’t get it than to rant about it – that transfers power to them.

In countries where the corruption is more entrenched, keep your doors locked, and open your window only a crack. In Libya, not only did cops snatch valuables through the window, they would get into the car and sit in the passenger seat till you paid them to go away. [We never had to pay up in Libya. The one time a cop pulled us over, we had our dog in the car. Our dog doesn't like Libyan policemen, it turns out].

Do not ever hand over your papers – show them through the window, and if they want to take hold of them, keep a grip of them too. Be polite but firm on this. They have so much more power over you once they have hold of your documents. However, even then, you may be prepared to let them keep them, or destroy them right in front of you, so that they see that threats do not work with you.

Demand receipts. Take down IDs. Get on the phone to someone important-sounding. It doesn’t always work, but it can give them pause. The idea is to make them realise you are too much bother and they can just pull the next expat over for their quick, easy money [and this will be the case right up until everyone says no]. It takes a little time and patience, but it does work – especially when they have pulled you over without good reason.

Where you are paying a bribe, do not, do not, do not do this: open your glove-box, pull out a wodge of cash, and say ‘how much do you think they want?’ Because they will want all of it. Have a ‘bribe’ pocket or slot in the car that happens to have the going amount in it. Pull it out and hand it over and get going. Don’t linger, don’t argue, don’t sneer over it and try to gain back power somehow. Pay up and go.

5. Talk to other expats again
Let them know your experience: if you paid, how much and the level of threat you felt; if you didn’t, how you got away with it – or how they punished you. Sharing information makes us stronger.

Yeah, we’ll take the warning, thanks.

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