Little bribes cost Mexico big money

MEXICO CITY (By Sergio Solache, Arizona Republic) September 20, 2006 — As soon as English teacher Hugo Cerón saw the police lights flashing in his rearview mirror, he knew what was about to happen. It was the "bite."

The police officer walked up to the car window and coolly informed Cerón that he was getting two tickets: for illegally talking on a cellphone while driving and for not wearing a seat belt. Cerón would have to go down to the police station, plead guilty and pay a fine. But there was a way out.

"The ticket was 500 pesos ($46), but he offered to let me be on my way for 100 pesos ($9.25)," Cerón said. "It was only because I looked like a good person, according to him."

Like thousands of Mexicans every day, Cerón paid up.

In Mexico, they call these little bribes mordidas, or "bites," the little payoffs and kickbacks that people give to cops, teachers and bureaucrats just to get on with their lives.

It's a culture of corruption that many experts fear is eating away at Mexico's efforts to modernize, strengthen the rule of law and democracy, and attract foreign investment.

Alarmed by the millions of pesos disappearing annually in bribes, civic groups have launched ad campaigns urging people to denounce corruption, some Mexican states are overhauling their legal systems to eliminate the bureaucracy that leads to bribery, and schools are trying to teach children not to offer bribes.

Still, the "bite" continues because many prefer this deep-rooted, traditional way of getting around and through the system. Mexicans start paying bribes as children in order to get good grades from their teachers. At 18, many pay a 200 peso ($19) bribe to be excused from their required military service. By the time they die, 87 percent of Mexicans will have paid some sort of bribe, according to a study by CEI Consulting and Research.

Mexicans rationalize bribes with sayings like "El que no transa no avanza," or "he who doesn't sell out, doesn't get ahead." But when you add up all the little payoffs, about 12 percent of Mexico's gross domestic product is lost to corruption, CEI estimates. That's enough money to cover all Mexico's health care needs.

"On the local, state and municipal level, there continues to be high rates of corruption," President Vicente Fox told The Arizona Republic in a recent interview. "As far as the mordida, the payoff to the policeman or to the clerk at the counter, we have to continue creating a strong culture to end that."

Symptom of bureaucracy

The mordida system dates back through centuries of weak colonial governments. But it became more ingrained under the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which centralized the economy and governed Mexico virtually unopposed from 1929 to 2000, according to Irma Sandoval, a political scientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

"When the PRI was in government, it generated a lack of oversight of public life," Sandoval said. "It created a kind of monopolistic network associated with bad government and poor civic life."

Today, most Mexicans blame government bureaucracy for the country's corruption, according to a poll by Mexico's Public Administration Department.

Paying a speeding ticket, for example, is a time-consuming ordeal in most parts of Mexico. Police officers accompany drivers to the police station, where they must fill out paperwork and pay the fine before going on their way.

Parking offenses are even worse. Mexican police don't leave parking tickets; they just tow cars. To get a car out of the impound yard in Mexico City, drivers must present copies of their registration certificates and driver's licenses, then pay about $50 in fines and fees, a huge sum in a country where the minimum wage is $4.30 a day.

In Mexico City, traffic fines have to be paid at a bank or office of the city treasury. Sometimes, that can involve hours of waiting.

"I went to pay a fine for my father, and I was in the treasury office about three hours, just to pay 250 pesos ($23)," said Claudia Medina, a university student. "The bureaucracy is unbearable."

To avoid the wait, citizens give mordidas of $10 to $50 to traffic cops. The code word is that the money is "for a soda."

Another problem, according to some experts, is Mexico's complicated, secretive legal system. Trials are performed through an exchange of legal briefs, a process that can take months or years.

"The backlogs that affect the justice system are enormous," Sen. Jorge Zermeño Infante said in a report on legal reform in June.

Faced with fighting a charge in court, many citizens opt for the bribe, instead. Bribes are also paid to speed paperwork at government offices.

"I went to get a driver's license, and they told me it would take three to four hours," said Erika Martínez of Mexico City. "Then, a man who bribes the employees came up to me and offered to get the license for me in 20 minutes for 250 pesos ($23), plus the paperwork fee."

Bigger offenses

With thousands of little bribes exchanging hands every day, bigger corruption is also a deep-seated problem.

In 2004 several Mexico City administrators were videotaped receiving millions of pesos in exchange for helping a construction magnate get city contracts.

Corruption became a major issue in the July 2 presidential election, with leftist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador accusing President Vicente Fox of creating an "empire of corruption and impunity in our country."

Part of the problem, experts say, are the low salaries paid to government employees in Mexico. The average department head in a government agency earns 4,576 pesos a month, or about $424, barely enough to support a family. A police officer in Mexico state, just outside the capital, earns 3,500 pesos, or $324 a month.

The bribery in Mexico is so pervasive that many travel guides openly advise foreigners on how to offer and negotiate mordidas.

Although these small bribes make Mexico go round, it is hardly the only country where the custom is pervasive. Mexico ranks as the 93rd most corrupt of 158 countries in the world, according to Transparency International, a watchdog group.

Fighting back

In recent years, the federal government and civic groups have launched a flurry of programs aimed at cutting down on corruption.

In 2000, the Mexican government passed a new open-records law and created the Federal Institute of Information Access to enforce it. The law forced all government agencies to make their contracts and bid processes public.

Some states are also moving to impose U.S.-style oral trials in the hope it will speed up justice and encourage citizens to use the courts.

This year, Mexico's Public Administration Department launched Web sites urging citizens to stop paying go-betweens and government employees to do paperwork. The sites tell people to "Do it yourself" and say "goodbye to cheating."

Several government agencies now have Web sites where citizens can denounce acts of bribery. Civic groups and government agencies have also been trying to attack the culture of corruption through several anti-corruption ad campaigns in recent years.

"Don't be quiet! Speak up!" urge anti-bribery ads from the Communication Council, which produces public service announcements. Radio spots urge citizens to denounce any bribe-taker as a "sellout, a crook, dog and a curse."

One of the ads shows a boy offering his soccer coach a bribe to put him in the game. In another ad campaign, launched this year by Mexico's Public Administration Department, sad music plays as a little boy smashes his piggy bank for money to bribe his teacher.

The Mexican Education Department has also launched an anti-bribery program called "Toward a Culture of Legality" and set up suggestion boxes in schools where children can complain about corruption.

Still, the bribery problem has proved a tenacious foe. A poll by the Public Administration Department in 2004 indicated 70 percent of Mexicans believe the public remains as willing as ever to participate in corruption.

About 72 percent of Mexicans said they don't believe Mexico will ever be able to eliminate the problem.