N. Koreans tell of rampant corruption - media report

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According to a news report by The Chosun Ilbo, ordinary North Koreans are lucky to earn US$30 a month, but senior state officials easily make more than $100 a day from endemic corruption. The Chosun Ilbo and Center for Cultural Unification Studies interviewed 100 North Koreans living in the Chinese border areas of Dandong and Yanji earlier this year. The interviewees say corruption is endemic in their country, and party officials have to be bribed in order to get anything done. Ninety say they have had to bribe a party official, and only 10 claimed they have not. The preferred bribes are cash or cigarettes. One person from Sinuiju said, "We have to pay between W20,000 and W100,000 in bribes to get a single travel pass." North Koreans also pay bribes to get their children stationed in better positions in the military. 

Read the story in The Chosun Ilbo.

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