The Transparency International reports on corruption are an interesting insight into how widespread these issues are. A lot of corruption grows on the 'everybody does it' mentality.
Please, please don't suggest it's the fault of the people paying the money. It's a system problem, and it's clearly encouraged from the top. I've seen it happen in many contexts...
In many instances, it's the cost of doing business or securing an otherwise legitimate service.
Of course, there are those paying bribes to trip up the competition or to secure protection from obvious crimes (like theft, murder etc). But for ordinary citizens, paying a bribe is an escape valve from an otherwise rigid bureaucratic dictatorship.
The solution is not to crack down on corruption (except perhaps those 'obvious crimes'), but to eliminate the bureaucracy fostering it.
Normally, bureaucracy was invented to ensure continuity of government even with changing political leaders. You need something to keep track of expenses and procedures on how to make decisions. But that creature grew like an octopus, engulfing ever greater portions of society. This stranglehold must be eliminated and not just reformed or offloaded into big web portals.
http://transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/...