- I Paid A Bribe
- 12 years ago
- 1708 views
Labour Officer demands bribe for doing his job
- Labour
- Inspection of Office or Factories
- Paid INR 3,000
I hate corruption, and would do almost anything to not bribe. I have told my accountant that I am willing to pay any fine as a result of any official harassment, as long as no bribe is being paid. I have also asked them to obey every regulation to the maximum extent possible. However these petty officials know that if they can keep harassing you and wasting your time that you'll eventually pay up.
The Labour officer who visits our office keeps picking on small issues and does his best to be a nuisance, with the objective of forcing me to bribe him. For example: He initially insisted that a) our signboard was not in Tamil, b) our attendance register was not being maintained properly, c) we had not posted some random giant labour department handouts about the rights of contract labourers in our noticeboard. I got these minor issues fixed, so then he started finding other issues. None of the issues are meaningful (i.e. fixing them helps 0 employees), but the list is infinite because his objective to get a bribe and he won't leave you until you pay him. He would keep insisting that my auditor/accountant ********** him at his office, and he would keep demanding money. He finally filed a set of arbitrary notices against us, and told us that he'd clear them if we bribed him. After a lot of harassment from this Labour guy (over a period of several months), we finally paid him a bribe of Rs. 3,000. While I am sickened that I was forced into this position, I am happy that I made him run around to get the bribe.
I would very much like to file a complaint against this guy and have him arrested, but I know that nothing will happen to him and also that even more of my time will be wasted. When you run a business, time is your most constrained resource. What really frustrates me is that while I am providing well-paid employment to nearly a hundred people, the Labour officer who is a leech who contributes nothing to society wields so much power over me. I hope the day comes when we can be rid of these corrupt individuals, who are a national shame.