Transparency International has released the Global Corruption Barometer 2016 for Europe:
The map above shows the answer to the most interesting question in the survey: “Did you or any member of your household make an unofficial payment or gift when using [a public service] over the past 12 months“?
In the last survey from 2013, at the height of the kleptocratic Yanukovych regime, that figure was 37% in Ukraine.
In this survey, it was 38% – the same as in Uganda.
In other words, more than three years after the beginning of the “Revolution of Dignity,” there has been absolutely no appreciable decline in corruption in Ukraine.
This is, incidentally, confirmed by other figures (earlier I posted a poll showing the bribery rate increasing from 37% to 40% between 2014 and 2015).
But what can one expect? What Westerners don’t get is that is that Maidanist Ukraine’s commitment to transparency is one big fat cargo cult. But what else can you expect in a country where “activists” turn up to “anti-corruption forums” in Lexuses and Mercedes? Where the physical symbol of the previous regime’s corruption, a golden loaf, went missing soon after the “revolution”? In a country that overthrew one kleptocrat and replaced him with a post-Soviet oligarch and one of the godfathers of Ukrainian clan politics?
To be sure, Russia with its 34% bribery rate (equivalent to Cote d’Ivoire), the joint-third worst in Europe after Moldova and Ukraine, has nothing to write home about either. It is a disturbing indication that there have been no improvements in everyday corruption during Putin’s time in power.
But at least Russia didn’t wage a war against its own people in the name of Poroshenko’s frescoes, oops, I meant “European values.”
But anyway – commenting on the map in general, the results are very much as expected based on country stereotypes and other subjective rankings like the CPI. That said, it’s worth nothing that Greece has made significant progress – whereas in 2013, 22% of Greeks had paid bribes, this year only 10% did.
Surprised by Georgia. Also, the UK is at 0%.
Re-Georgia. Interestingly enough, corruption in Georgia never seems to have been extremely high to begin with (it was a mere 6% in 2004, the earliest date for which data is available; the report was published mere months after the Rose Revolution, so this was unlikely to have been Saakashvili’s doing. Now it is 7%. No change).
Georgia is a very strange country that, like India, has a strange pattern of turning HBD wisdom on its head.
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/708247293556723712
I am going to give Stalin his due on this one aspect: Russia probably had its least corrupt phase under his rule. Maybe the Georgians are a curious exception to the south = corruption pattern.
Re-UK. Its consistently extremely low, I think last time it was 1%. It does not surprise me at all. Does it surprise you?
“That said, it’s worth nothing that Greece has made significant progress – whereas in 2013, 22% of Greeks had paid bribes, this year only 10% did.”
How did they do that?
Very important to fight against corruption. If you win, your prize will be to become like Sweden. Sweden Yes!
It doesn’t surprise me that the UK is very low, but still, 0%. It’s just impressive.
Did you or any member of your household make an unofficial payment or gift when using [a public service] over the past 12 months?
They only ask if you made a gift or payment, not if you had to make it in order to get services. And services listed here include public education and medical services. My wife gives Christmas gifts to our kids’ schoolteachers. Does this count as corruption?
I know that in Russia parents not only give gifts to teachers but collect money to pay for various school needs. So every parent with a school kid will answer yes to this question. And how about the old Soviet custom where satisfied patients give their doctors unofficial gifts such as a box of chocolates or a bottle of wine?
“Did you or any member of your household make an unofficial payment or gift when using [a public service] over the past 12 months?”
Bouquets of Flowers which are mandatory gift for school teachers on 1 September – are considered a gift?
The General opinion in Russia that petty corruption has decreased significantly.
It’s impossible to pay bribes when you don’t have any money!
Doesn’t surprise me at all. It simply wouldn’t occur to me to offer a bribe to any official here, not even in the form of a “thank you” gift (it helps that I’m naturally reserved about such things, perhaps), and I think the same applies to most Brits.
I’m aware of course that the semi-optional giving of “gifts” to teachers and doctors is a tradition in Russia.
It is also however a tradition throughout the ex-USSR as well as other East European countries like Hungary.
Nonetheless, Estonia is at 5%, while Tajikistan is at 50%.
People have learned nothing from the epic failure of polling agencies and continue to believe fabricated “researches” of deceitful organizations.
So, this is finally my first comment here. Why now? Because I was just triggered by a ridiculous propaganda piece about Russian health care by Newsweek (published on Independent.co.uk). I’ve been trying to avoid the most russophobic BS lately (and I’ve managed to do it quite succesfully, I might add), so that caught me off guard. Thanks to you Anatoly, I had some statistical facts to share on the comment section.
Anyway, IIRC, you mentioned a while ago that according to some metrics Russian corruption doesn’t seem to be worse than in Hungary. So how do you see that now, the situation currently? It must have improved atleast modestly, considering the improved stability… and well, everything, right?
And that question seems to quite “neutral”, so it should measure corruption quite objectively? Didn’t you criticize them earlier for their bias/subjectivity? Or was it some other NGO? I’m mixing them up.
In Hungary the “gifts” you give to doctors (not to teachers) are envelopes with money in them. You are expected to give money to doctors before or after, but most people think it’s smarter to give it before (and some people like my mom think it’s optically bad to give before because it looks like a bribe, so they give after), however, it must be noted that if you don’t give, you’ll still get the service, though it will probably be worse quality. Who wants to risk that with a hospital? Oh, forgot to say, it only applies to medical specialists in hospitals, not family doctors, where you are not expected to give anything.
The Hungarian healthcare system (where neither doctors nor nurses are paid enough and then are expected to make up for it from the envelope money) is the big reason why we look so bad on this map. Cops used to be relatively corrupt (though neither me nor my parents ever gave cops anything, you didn’t have to if you were largely following the rules), but recently there were a lot of anti-corruption measures there (started before Orbán, but continued by him), and so cops are (as far as I know) not quite corrupt, and even wary if you try to bribe them, because they might assume you’re from an anti-corruption agency.
To be honest, outside the health care system, and maybe the occasional traffic stop with police, I cannot really imagine bribes being given or accepted. (The health care system is really weird. For example anesthesiologists or radiologists don’t get these bribes, so they are paid higher salaries, usually as outside contractors to circumvent the civil servant salary table. Nobody is really happy with it, but the top doctors make a lot of money from these bribes.)
Most corruption in Hungary is friends helping friends, who are in turn helped by friends.
I think that’s missing an important part of the equation: how many services do the Ugandan or Ivorian governments provide? How many policemen are there at all? Do they provide hospitals with a temptation for doctors to accept bribes? If the Ugandan or Ivorian states barely exist, then it’s little surprise that bribery will be merely at Russian or Ukrainian levels.
Oh, the ranking absolutely makes sense (and note how Belarus > Russia > Ukraine, a relationship I mentioned before.) The absolute figures, on the other hand, are junk.
“Did you or any member of your household make an unofficial payment or gift when using [a public service] over the past 12 months“?
Western Europe looks less corrupt, but considering that EU officials and media people are essentially funded by the US and globalist oligarchs, isn’t it corrupt in its own ways?
And the West routinely uses all sorts of organizations to essentially bribe other nations around the world.
The change in Ukrainian government had a lot to do with US funding of operatives there. But that isn’t counted as corruption because it is officially legal by standards established by the US.
EU officials don’t have to take petty bribes since they take HUGE payoffs from big donors and the global elites.
A corruption study like the one mentioned in this article ignores the kind of stuff the Clintons and Soroses do all the time.
Gifts for the teacher aren’t unknown in Canada. Ditto ‘thank yous’ to doctors and other helpers. Fundraising for school needs has grown to industrial strength in parts of Canada.