Brussels - The South African private sector is not particularly honest, indicates a survey published on Tuesday by Transparency International (TI).
TI is a non-governmental organisation in Berlin that measures the incidence of corruption globally.
According to the survey, known as the Bribe Payers' Index, which investigates bribery and corruption, South Africa comes 15th of 22 industrial countries investigated in the survey. When a previous similar survey was done in 2006 South Africa was 24th among 30 countries studied.
Topping the list as the most honest countries are Belgium and Canada, scoring 8.8 out of 10. This means that Belgian and Canadian companies are the least disposed to pay bribes in international transactions.
The Netherlands and Switzerland (8.7) together take third place. Russia is at the bottom of the list with 5.9, just below China (6.5), Mexico (6.6) and India (6.8). South Africa's score is 7.5.
The "cleanest" sectors were information technology, fishing, and banking and finance. The "dirtiest" were public works and construction, oil and gas, mining and property development.
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