Why Nakuru residents are always willing to pay bribe

On paper, Nakuru county appears to be doing better than many counties when it comes to corruption at the service counter.

The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission’s National Ethics and Corruption Survey (NECS) 2024 shows that bribe demand likelihood is low in Nakuru county compared to those in high-risk counties.

According to the survey Nakuru’s bribery solicitation likelihood stands at 0.72, well below counties that score above 1.0, where demands for bribes are frequent and overt.

Yet the same report reveals a more uncomfortable truth: 65.5 per cent of Nakuru residents seeking public services still end up paying a bribe.

This contradiction, low solicitation but high payment, raises a deeper question about how corruption actually operates in the county. If residents are not constantly being asked to pay, why do so many still do?

Evans Obwoyo, a matatu driver along the Nakuru-Eldoret highway, says that in their line of work, giving out bribes to the authorities has been a norm.

“To avoid being harassed by the enforcement officers, we part with Sh 50; nowadays, they never even ask, we give out automatically,” he says.

He says that in the event you don’t do so, it invites a lot of problems.

“When you don’t give them the “money,” it invites them to do inspections, and of course they will find you with one mistake or the other, which will attract a higher fee; therefore, parting with the initial payment is usually the better option,” he notes.

From Obwoyo’s description, bribery does not begin with an explicit demand. Instead, it thrives in anticipation.

This form of corruption is subtle and transactional. A pause in service, a missing signature, or a vague instruction to “come back next week” becomes a cue. Residents respond not because they are threatened, but because they have learned, through experience, that delay is costly.

This was the case with Allan Ochieng, who had gone to get his identity card.

“In order to fasten the process, I found myself “buying lunch” even without them asking; this is because I knew that would have been the easiest way to get my passport in the shortest time,” he says.

The NECS data supports this pattern. Nakuru’s lower likelihood of solicitation suggests fewer direct demands, but the high prevalence of payment indicates that citizens themselves often initiate the bribe to avoid uncertainty, delay, or bureaucratic fatigue. Therefore, paying for speed, not access.

Masese Kemunche, Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Enhancing Democracy and Good Governance (CEDGG), says that on matters of bribery, people give out bribes not because they want to, but because their options have been taken away.

“Service delivery by state agencies has become so complicated that payment of bribes to receive a service becomes the only option, because systems are complex and unnecessarily costly. Therefore, in a sense, bribery has been normalized,” he says.

He says the solutions to this would be to improve our systems, making them accessible, affordable, and clear, as that would help reduce this.

“The issues surrounding enforcement of laws on corruption and bribery are quite weak; therefore, this presents a huge challenge in the fight against corruption. In a manner, we should strengthen our systems and ensure this fight is fought from all fronts, so as to eradicate this menace,” he notes.