Individual Corruption

Citizens living in Addis Ababa cite drivers' licence procedures as an area where bribes are often required, with the average bribe being ETB 500, as reported by the Transparency Ethiopia Corruption Diagnostic Baseline Survey 2009.

According to Global Integrity 2010, a driver with a forged driver's licence was pulled over by a traffic police officer and was, for once, unable to get around the arrest by paying a bribe - a behaviour that he had otherwise resorted to over the past five years. The officer happened to be new to the force. The driver explained that his forged driver's licence, which he acquired by paying ETB 500 (USD 30), did not represent a problem for him not even when he violated traffic rules as long as he paid a bribe ranging from ETB 20 to ETB 100 (USD 1.20 to USD 6). After his arrest, the driver was bailed out for ETB 600 (USD 36). He further explained that both the driver and his brother had to pay a bribe to a detective involved in the case in order to change information in the documents of the offender so that the court would hasten the bail agreement. Moreover, Global Integrity 2010 reports that the corruption within the Ethiopian motor vehicle regulation system directly results in thousands of annual traffic accidents and hundreds of deaths per year.

Business Corruption

Companies are sometimes required to pay bribes when dealing with public utility authorities in Ethiopia. This is illustrated well by Global Integrity 2010, according to which business inspections by government officials to ensure public health and safety standards are generally carried out in an arbitrary and ad-hoc manner, and bribes are frequently extracted from companies in return for favourable treatment or expedited processing. Furthermore, according to the source, for high-profile businessmen it is generally difficult to do business in Ethiopia, including receiving licences and permits, without involving at least one influential government official.

Global Integrity 2010 also notes that former Transport authority employees who had been fired because of malpractice solicited potential clients who were not willing to go through the bureaucracy required to get a driver's licence and offered them fake licence in return for bribes.

Frequency

The World Bank & IFC: Doing Business 2012:
- Starting a company requires the entrepreneur to go through 5 procedures, taking 9 days at a cost of 12.8% of income per capita.

- It takes 9 procedures, 128 days at 369.1% of the income per capita to obtain the necessary licences and permits, notifications and inspections and public utility connections to build a warehouse.

- It takes an average of 3 years to close a business at a cost of 15% of the estate.

World Economic Forum: The Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012:
- Business executives give government regulations in Ethiopia a score of 3.6 on a 7-point scale (1 being 'burdensome' and 7 'not burdensome').

The World Bank & IFC: Enterprise Surveys 2006:
- 3% of the companies surveyed expect to give gifts to get an operating licence.

- 4% of the companies surveyed expect to give gifts to get a construction permit.

- 7% of the companies surveyed expect to give gifts to get an electrical connection, 5% expect to give gifts to get a water connection, and 4% expect to give gifts to get a phone connection.