 Ukraine: A World Leader in Corruption By Serhiy KRYHA |
Over the past several years an image of Ukraine as an extremely corrupted state has "stuck" to the country, as
a burdock to pants. Both our domestic and the foreign mass media have trumpeted all over the world that corruption has reached the dimension of a social epidemic. According to the Corruption Perceptions Index, used by Transparency International - Ukraine occupies 20th place among the first one hundred countries. Our "neighbors" in the list are Cote d'Ivoire, Venezuela, and Vietnam. This is such a shame!
This "honorable" place actually means that corruption like a cancerous tumor penetrates all levels of our society, from even the small functionary to a minister, and our fearless law-enforcement people can not catch the bribe-takers, but only "gape" at such things. Ukraine with such damaged reputation, of course, scares away potential investors and the reputation compromises the country in the eyes of the world community.
However, our authorities, trying build up esprit de corps, do not agree categorically with such conclusions. The authorities say that the increase in reported acts of bribery tells not about the increase in the corruption level, but that the fight against corruption is becoming more active.
And here is what the people think. A USAID program "Partnership for a Transparent Society" last year conducted a national survey regarding this issue.
It appeared that most Ukrainians (89%) think that corruption is a serious problem. Not one of the respondents said that it's a fictitious problem. Most respondents had ascertained this themselves. Of the respondents, 63% stated that either they themselves or members of their families had encountered situations where they were asked or been hinted to as to bribes. The main reason for a person to give a bribe is that there is no other way for that person to solve
a problem: so, if you don't give an envelope with money - you won't solve your problem. This is what 68% of respondents believe. Also most respondents don't trust the authorities' efforts in overcoming this "social disease". Moreover most respondents think that such efforts have low effect and are fruitless.
These days the "immunity" from corruption has really weakened Ukrainian society. The lack of noticeable achievements in overcoming it, the authorities' lack of serious intentions to fight the problem, the atmosphere of ignoring laws with impunity - all these reasons make one perceive corruption as not being an abnormal situation, but rather as a social norm and an integral part of society relations.
It's well understood that the more a state regulates its economy, the more possibilities appear for the bribing of functionaries. Currently Ukraine's excessive, hypertrophied authority of the bureaucratic apparatus contributes to corruption. Probably small- and medium-sized businesses suffer the most because of the situation. Entrepreneurs encounter everywhere different obstacles which can be overcome only with power of "a magic envelope", i.e., bribing. For example, to get a license or permission to engage into commercial activities. Due to this reason alone prices for goods and services rise by three to ten per cent.
On the other hand, corruption is a direct consequence of criminalization and the shadow economy of the country. For example, due to the authorities' insufficient attention to criminal problems, the so-called mafia takes control over different markets in business and sets artificially increased consumer prices (on average by 15 to 20% or more). Bribed tax inspectors pay no attention to enterprises hiding a portion of their incomes, so the state budget obtains little tax money. State employees receive remuneration ("kickbacks") when they order expensive equipment from commercial companies and deliberately overprice their goods and services. Customs office people, having received bribes, let different consumer goods pass through customs without payment of duties and taxes. There were many cases during the privatization process when prices of property to be privatized were deliberately decreased. A substantial amount of money has to be paid to enter state-run higher education institutions (where supposedly tuition is free of charge). One can go on almost endlessly providing examples.
The apogee of the venality of Ukrainian power was Pavlo Lazarenko's (a former prime minister of Ukraine) career. As investigators of his case claim, when he was in power he embezzled unheard-of amounts of money (tens of millions of dollars).
Taking only this fact into consideration, one can imagine to what extent corruption fused into the lower levels of the state apparatus.
What makes a regular functionary take bribes? His/her low salary is one factor. In Ukraine salaries of state functionaries are several times lower than remuneration of people working in the private sector. It's hard to say what reasons are considered by those who set such low rates for state employees' salaries. It even seems to me that it's done deliberately in order to prompt state employees to look for ways of getting illegal incomes. It's clear that if there is compromising evidence on a certain person, then it's easier to control such a person. On the contrary, if such functionaries had decent salaries, they perhaps would care for their positions and would think more seriously whether it's worth it to enter into an extralegal artifice.
A whole "army" of state bodies fight corruption in Ukraine (more correctly, is supposed to fight): these include the coordination committee for fighting against corruption and organized crime - this committee is affiliated with the President of Ukraine; special divisions for fighting corruption in the militia and the state security bodies; prosecutors' offices; customs bodies; subdivisions of border troops; employees of tax and control-revision inspections, etc.
The above mentioned bodies periodically report about their completed work, but it's hard to recall any "breaking news" disclosures. Besides that, a long time ago people arrived at the opinion that some bribe-takers' close relations with higher authorities allows the former to get some sort of an "indulgence", forgiveness. However, sometimes law-enforcement bodies in their efforts for "good reports on fighting with corruption" consider some people to be corrupt who are clearly not. Sometimes even ridiculous situations occur. About a year ago one such ridiculous case happened in Zaporizhzhya Oblast. One state functionary was accused of corruption: he did a "horrible" crime - he received two packs of fruit juice for free.
Up to this time no country in the world has succeeded in the complete elimination of corruption, in finding radical "remedies" against it, in spite of the fact that this is a number one priority in many countries. Even in Japan where functionaries have always been considered as "the pink and paragon" of honesty and devotion to state, it appeared recently that the economy is seriously "infected with the corruption virus".
Specialists agree that it's impossible to completely eliminate corruption as well as other kinds of crime. Corruption can only be controlled within certain limits. And when it comes to more or less effective campaign for fighting it - it appears that it's not a short-term issue, but serious long-term diligent work is required to combine both preventive and repressive measures.
It's time to improve anti-corruption legislation in Ukraine, namely: to strengthen criminal responsibility for the worst economic crimes, to improve investigative activity in terms of legal norms, to define more clearly concepts of administrative corruption activities and criminal corruption activities. Ukrainian lawyers propose to define more precisely different "price values" of bribes: depending on an amount of a bribe a criminal will bear either administrative or criminal responsibility. If possible it's also worthwhile to provide a whole list of corruption crimes in the Ukrainian law.
It seems that it's quite prospective to involve non-governmental organizations in fighting corruption. Those organizations seem more able to control the authorities in regard to their venality. Those organizations offer and lobby for necessary changes in legislation, and the main thing - those organizations are able to promote honest behavior among citizens of the latter to adhere to, explain to them their rights and what heavy damages corruption takes out of all of us.
And one wants to believe that corruption will become less by itself when eventually honest transparent "rules of the game" are established in the economy and we wait for the time when the state will lessen the tax pressure on businesses.
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Read also previous issue' articles:
Are Ukraine's Political Habits Unique?
Is Ukraine's Economic Growth Speculation-led?
Ukraine is Drifting to the West - Slowly but Surely
The Unfinished Orange Revolution?
Vacuums, Reforms and the Need to Regain the Initiative
Pirates of the 21st century
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