Are you having to grease more palms to get by?
| 09:55 UK time, Thursday, 9 December 2010
Whether it's high-level in deciding the destination of the world's biggest football event or , it seems more palms are being greased and more backs are being scratched worldwide.
On Wednesday a judge in the US state of Louisiana was impeached for taking bribes; earlier this year Ivory Coast's chamber of commerce said unofficial payments to the police were costing the country $300m.
But how bad is the problem where you are? World Have Your Say is going to be looking at the problem today in two special programmes - on TV at 1530 GMT and the usual radio programme at 1800 GMT.
How bad is the problem? Well, have a look at this table:
Evidently, sub-Saharan Africa is the worst-affected region. On average, 56% of people there have paid bribes, mostly to keep out of trouble with the authorities.
In the Arab world and Latin America, meanwhile, most bribes are being paid to speed things up.
But enough statistics. The point is how people are actually affected by all of this - and on World Have Your Say, we're going to be talking to some of them - such as Jim Laski in Chicago, a former city clerk who spent two years in prison for taking bribes and obstructing justice.
We perhaps all like to think we are uncorruptable - but evidently this survey suggests that is not the case. What is your price?
Have you ever paid a bribe? If so, what was it for? Does everyone have a price?
