Page 338 - Volume 2_CHANGES_merged_with links

What Corruption ? Whose Corruption ?

Managing change

My return travels meant I entered country KHR from a different direction and so
travelled on a private bus from country VDN and entering at a different KHR border post.

This journey gave me a greater insight into the mafia like system.

Prior to arriving at the border, the 'conductor' on the bus was taking people's
passports and asking for USD 40. The KHR visa was still only USD 30 but the extra charge

being sought was now USD 10 - not USD 3. I refused. They argued. They were unhappy.
The reasons for this became clearer as time went on.

The bus turned away from the border post, stopped out of sight of the border guards

and told me to get off and to carry my own luggage the 400-600 metres to the border post.
As I completed the KHR visa formalities, I was met with very quizzical looks from the

border guard who stamped my visa. He clearly could not understand how I arrived at that

border post alone and on foot.
Having completed the entry formalities, I was told to sit on an 'island' that separated

the 2 in and out lanes of border traffic. I was the only passenger among different forms of

border security force. Customs, Drug squad, and others. Each was very anxious to ask me
how I was travelling. Learning that I had arrived on the international bus and that I was now

waiting for it to arrive so that I could rejoin it, there were wry smiles all round. These people

understood what had taken place. That this was a missing USD 5. And they knew what
would follow.

Much later, the bus I was due to rejoin arrived at the border post. The bus crew were
the last to exit from the visa processing. Normally, they are the first. They were some of the

unhappiest people you might see. They had sinned.

Each USD 10 they had tried to collect was meant to provide USD 5 for the border
mafia and an equal amount for them. Not getting the extra USD 10 from me meant that

they had not been able to give the border guards their share - USD 5. As a result the bus
crew had been separated from passengers, shouted at, harassed and threatened that any

more failures would result in their bus having problems and being turned back at the

border. And as the bus crew need to pass through that border every day, the bus crew well
knew this would automatically lead to them losing their jobs.

Just scan the section in this narrative that detailed just how common it is for public

service employees in an underdeveloped African country (but in truth, in any such country
anywhere in the world) to go unpaid for many months. Whether at first willing or unwilling,