A new national survey has revealed how corruption continues to shape access to public services in Kenya, showing that magistrates receive the highest average cash bribes while police officers remain the most frequently bribed across the country.
The findings are contained in the Kenya National Gender and Corruption Survey 2025 released by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, which also points to rising bribery costs and clear gender patterns in both victims and recipients of corruption.
According to the report, magistrates top the list of public officials receiving the highest average cash bribe, at Sh164,367. Other officials handling high-value bribes include judges in courts, immigration officers, and land registry officers. Immigration officers receive an average of Sh17,000, while land registry officers take about Sh12,000 on average.
At the lower end, civil registration officials receive the smallest average cash bribe of Sh1,415, mainly linked to the issuance of birth and death certificates.
The survey further shows that the national average bribe across all public officials now stands at Sh6,724, marking a 38 per cent increase from Sh4,878 recorded in 2024.
While magistrates attract the largest single payments, police officers are the most frequently bribed officials. The report states that 35.5 per cent of all service seekers admitted to giving a bribe to police officers within the last 12 months.
A gender breakdown shows that corruption patterns vary between men and women. Among male respondents, 41.6 per cent said they paid bribes to police officers, making them the leading recipients for men. For women, police officers ranked second in bribery encounters.
The report also highlights that those receiving bribes are largely men. It notes that 88.8 per cent of police officers who received bribes were male. Similarly, 92.9 per cent of National Transport and Safety Authority officers linked to bribery were men, while 92.3 per cent of Kenyan prosecutors involved in bribery cases were also men.
The findings suggest a pattern where men mostly pay bribes to other men, especially within law enforcement and related agencies.
For women, however, the experience is different. The survey shows that 30.8 per cent of female respondents who paid bribes gave them to civil registration officials.
The importance of birth certificates in accessing essential services was also highlighted, especially for school registration.
One focus group participant from Uasin Gishu county explained how the system exploits them when they seek services.
“In practice, if you follow the normal process, it can take up to two weeks to get a birth certificate,” she said. “But if you pay a bribe, often around Sh1,000, though the official fee is only Sh150, you can get it the same day. Civil registration officers deliberately create delays so that people are forced to pay more.”
The survey further identifies government employment as the most expensive service in terms of bribery. Although magistrates receive the highest single bribe amounts, applicants seeking government jobs pay the highest average bribe overall at Sh85,033.
Other costly transactions include securing government contracts, where the average bribe stands at Sh24,020.
The report paints a picture of a system where both high-level judicial processes and basic public services are affected by bribery, with rising costs and clear patterns of gender and institutional imbalance.
