By Anne Mugisa

A survey has ranked the Police, Immigration Department and the Tax Appeals Tribunal as the worst among the Justice, Law and Order Sector (JLOS) agencies.

The report, released on Wednesday, said the outright denial of services or unfair treatment of the public by the agencies were manifestations of corruption.

These are deliberately used to extort bribes from the service seekers.

The study, carried out by Reev Consult Ltd, said all the JLOS institutions had complaints levelled against them, accounting for the continued negative image.

The public perception of the JLOS institutions, according to the report that was launched by Chief Justice Benjamin Odoki, stood at only 26%.

According to the findings, corruption took place in different forms, including bribery, nepotism, tribalism, extortion and fraud. This led to unfair treatment or outright denial of services in JLOS institutions.

The Police force yet again topped other JLOS institutions in terms of both unfair treatment and denial of services, with 13.4% and 8.8% of the respondents reporting being unfairly treated and discriminated against, respectively.

On further investigation, it was noted that Police officers usually deny clients services deliberately to extort bribes from them.

At least 9.6% of the respondents accused the tax tribunal and 9.1% accused the immigrations department of treating them unfairly.

The report pointed out that bribery was the most common form of corruption experienced in the JLOS institutions.

It cut across regardless of the respondents’ demographic and socio-economic characteristics.

The report stated that the victims of the vice coped through different ways, the biggest being having to offer the bribes.

It showed that 71% offered the bribe and 20% forfeited the service sought. Only 3% of the victims reported to the authorities, while 6% opted for alternative institutions.

This, the report pointed out, is telling on the public levels of confidence in the JLOS institutions.