Bribes, Kickbacks, “Commissions”—Oh My! Dealing with Corruption at Your Business

<p>Corruption is an unfortunate fact of business life. How can you remain ethical and still survive when it seems that everyone else is playing the game? Soji Apampa is one entrepreneur who believes there are ways to strategically navigate a corrupt system. Hear how his NGO in Nigeria is helping entrepreneurs to keep their hands clean. And listen to true stories from business owners across Africa and South Asia about the real cost of corruption on lives and livelihoods.</p><p>When it comes to dealing with corruption, you are definitely not alone. Which is a key reason why Soji Apampa created an NGO dedicated to the issue. In 1995 the Integrity Organization was born and later the Convention on Business Integrity for the sole purpose of dealing with the issue of corruption in Nigeria. The organization’s early goal was simple according to Apampa: “We would like to be that matchstick that starts the bush fire. And even if the matchstick gets extinguished, so long as the fire spreads, we will have achieved something.”&nbsp;</p><p>Twenty-five years later, they’ve achieved far more, studying corruption and explaining how it actually operates to help others avoid it — in Nigeria and beyond. “The reasons why people fall prey is, number one, they don't know the rules. So, you don't know the rules, you do the wrong thing, they just charge you. If you do the right thing in the first place, you can avoid those petty charges to start with,” Apampa suggests.</p><p>Apampa encourages people to do the right thing from the start to avoid the “slippery slope” of corruption. “For many wise organizations, they just bite the bullet from the start and do the right thing, and they can avoid the bulk of it. But if you pay once, they keep coming. And imagine you do that with four or five agencies, then you're totally at their mercy,” he says.</p><p>Unfortunately, the only way many small businesses can avoid corruption is to stay small and under the radar, but this ends up hampering their growth. So, one of Apampa’s goals is to hel