Graft growing in New Zealand, Australia: agency

Domestic bribery and corruption is a growing problem in New Zealand and Australia, with almost a quarter of business organizations reporting recent corruption, global accounting giant Deloitte announced Thursday.

Deloitte conducted a trans-Tasman survey of 269 public and private sector organizations that found 23 percent of respondents reported experiencing at least one instance of domestic corruption in the last five years.

Of those, more than half occurred in the last 12 months.

"Almost one in four organizations reporting an incident is a significant level of corruption. There is no longer any excuse for complacency against this risk," Deloitte lead forensics partner Barry Jordan said in a statement.

"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 organization's bottom line."

The most common types of domestic corruption cited included undisclosed conflicts of interest, supplier kickbacks and personal favors.

Twenty-six percent of the reported incidents were from organizations with more than 5,000 employees.

No industry was immune with all sectors experiencing at least some reported incidents in the last five years.

The top ways in which instances of domestic corruption were discovered were through management review, internal controls and tip-offs from employees. Endi