(1 Mar 2007)
1. Wide of traffic around Kremlin
2. Close up Kremlin clock tower
3. Wide of traffic
4. Medium of group of traffic policemen on side of street
5. Wide of traffic
6. Medium traffic policeman in the street
7. Wide of traffic
8. SOUNDBITE: (Russian) Voxpop: Mikhail, Moscow driver:
“We give bribes to traffic policemen like all normal people, like all Moscow citizens do. Nobody wants any trouble. You only have one driving licence and nobody wants to lose it.”
9. Wide of traffic policemen in the street
10. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Voxpop: Timur, Moscow driver:
“This has always happened. Some people take bribes, some don’t. In some situations it is actually easier to pay on the spot, rather then to go to the bank, pay there, go through an investigation and all sorts of procedures. For me it is easier to give money straight away.”
11. Medium of traffic policeman in the street
12. Close up traffic lights
13. Close up bus driver in bus
14. Wide of traffic
15. Medium of traffic policemen
16. Various of traffic in the street
STORYLINE:
Russian prosecutors will conduct a nationwide probe of the country’s traffic police, citing growing complaints from citizens and saying that bribe-taking and extortion by officers is one the increase, authorities said on Wednesday.
The announcement is likely to confirm the views of many Russian motorists, for whom the traffic police are perhaps the most common contact point with a state bureaucracy plagued by corruption.
The Prosecutor General’s Office noted cases in which traffic police officers sold driver’s licenses, apparently referring to the common practice of handing out licenses to applicants who have not completed the required classes or tests in exchange for bribes, and said some officers “mix entrepreneurial activity with their service.”
Russian drivers are used to giving bribes to traffic policemen after they violate some traffic regulations. Some of the drivers do not even consider it a bribe, they say it is easier for them to pay the fine “on the spot” rather then to solve the issue officially.
“This has always happened. Some people take bribes, some don’t,” Timur, a Moscow driver told AP Television.
“In some situations it is actually easier to pay on the spot, rather then to go to the bank, pay there, go through an investigation and all sorts of procedures,” he added.
Russia’s oil-fuelled economic growth has led to an explosion of cars in a country where vehicle ownership was relatively rare during the Soviet era, creating more potential prey for traffic police who seek to augment their salaries with bribes.
Persistent corruption has clouded the record of the popular President Vladimir Putin, who has made fighting corruption a major goal, but experts say the problems have worsened at all levels of government since he came to office in 2000.
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