The 2015 Deloitte Bribery and Corruption Survey, which examines public and private sector organisations across New Zealand and Australia, reports that 23% of survey respondents reported one or more instances of ‘significant domestic corruption’ in the last five years, more than half of which occurred in the last year.

Barry Jordan, Deloitte lead forensics partner, says that, in light of the results, there is no excuse for Kiwi complacency against the risk of corruption.

“Apart from the legal ramifications, which can include heavy fines or even jail time, the long term reputational damage from corruption can have serious long term flow on effects on an organisation’s bottom line,” he says.  

The most common types of domestic corruption cited by respondents? Undisclosed conflicts of interest, supplier kickbacks and personal favours. 

The report also indicated that no Kiwi industry appears to be immune with all sectors experiencing at least some reported incidents in the last five years.

While the top ways in which instances of domestic corruption were discovered were through management review, internal controls and employee tip-offs, for larger organisations (with more than 5000 employees), the top discovery method was from tip-offs via a dedicated hotline.

“This highlights the importance large organisations should place on enabling tip-offs to be made, appropriately received and then actioned. Hotline channels have increasing potential in terms of incident detection and deterrence,” says Jordan.

Read the full report here.