Bulgarians Pessimistic on Govt Fight Against Corruption - Transparency Intl
Politics | December 6, 2007, ThursdayBulgarians are among the most pessimistic respondents in Transparency International's (TI) latest corruption barometer survey regarding their government's efforts to fight corruption, data released on Thursday showed.
Roughly 72% of Bulgarians interviewed in for the survey said they viewed the government's efforts to fight corruption as ineffective.
The figure is above the 54% average across the 60 countries covered by the survey and one of the highest, but still below the 77% recorded in Germany and Lithuania.
Among Bulgaria's neighbours, it is the highest figure, followed by Greece with 59%, Serbia with 56%, Romania with 55%, Turkey with 37% and Macedonia with 21%.
The Bulgarian respondents of the survey see political parties and the legal system as the most corrupt, scoring 4.3 out of 5 points, followed closely by the parliament and medical services sector.
The military, with a score of 2.7 and the utilities are the least corrupt, followed by the media and religious bodies.
At the same time, only 7% of Bulgarian respondents have paid a bribe to receive services, compared to 5% average in the EU grouping of countries and 13% across the entire sample.
Neighbouring Romania was among the leaders in this respect, with 33% of respondents acknowledging they had to pay a bribe to receive services.
When asked about dealing with services, telephone and natural gas utilities were the least likely to demand bribes, while law enforcement was the most frequent source with courts the second most frequent source worldwide.
Overall it is the poor who are most often confronted with requests for bribes, in wealthy and poor countries alike. "Extortion hits low-income households with a regressive tax that saps scarce household resources," TI's report said.
"The report reveals that the police and the judiciary in many countries around the world are part of a cycle of corruption, demanding bribes from citizens. This troubling finding means that corruption is interfering with the basic right to equal treatment before the law," TI managing director Cobus de Swardt said.
The corruption barometer shows a strong correlation between the experience of bribery among ordinary citizens and the perceptions of corruption by experts, which are the basis for the corruption perceptions index (CPI), TI noted.
TI and Gallup interviewed 63,199 people in 60 countries between June and September for the survey.
Roughly 72% of Bulgarians interviewed in for the survey said they viewed the government's efforts to fight corruption as ineffective.
The figure is above the 54% average across the 60 countries covered by the survey and one of the highest, but still below the 77% recorded in Germany and Lithuania.
Among Bulgaria's neighbours, it is the highest figure, followed by Greece with 59%, Serbia with 56%, Romania with 55%, Turkey with 37% and Macedonia with 21%.
The Bulgarian respondents of the survey see political parties and the legal system as the most corrupt, scoring 4.3 out of 5 points, followed closely by the parliament and medical services sector.
The military, with a score of 2.7 and the utilities are the least corrupt, followed by the media and religious bodies.
At the same time, only 7% of Bulgarian respondents have paid a bribe to receive services, compared to 5% average in the EU grouping of countries and 13% across the entire sample.
Neighbouring Romania was among the leaders in this respect, with 33% of respondents acknowledging they had to pay a bribe to receive services.
When asked about dealing with services, telephone and natural gas utilities were the least likely to demand bribes, while law enforcement was the most frequent source with courts the second most frequent source worldwide.
Overall it is the poor who are most often confronted with requests for bribes, in wealthy and poor countries alike. "Extortion hits low-income households with a regressive tax that saps scarce household resources," TI's report said.
"The report reveals that the police and the judiciary in many countries around the world are part of a cycle of corruption, demanding bribes from citizens. This troubling finding means that corruption is interfering with the basic right to equal treatment before the law," TI managing director Cobus de Swardt said.
The corruption barometer shows a strong correlation between the experience of bribery among ordinary citizens and the perceptions of corruption by experts, which are the basis for the corruption perceptions index (CPI), TI noted.
TI and Gallup interviewed 63,199 people in 60 countries between June and September for the survey.
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