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Ukraine places among the top 25 countries most affected by bribery, according to the 2007 Global Corruption Barometer

25 countries most affected by bribery.

The findings, released Dec. 6, were presented in the 2007 Global Corruption Barometer (GCB), a compilation of public opinion surveys conducted in 60 countries by Gallup International on behalf of the international watchdog Transparency International (TI).

The number of Ukrainian bribe-givers grew by 7 percent year-on-year to double the average rate of corruption reported by 63,000 survey respondents around the world.

Ukraine fared better than countries like Cambodia and Romania, but scored on par with countries like Bolivia, Indonesia and Serbia.


Corruption up worldwide

In its fifth year, GCB found that petty bribery has not decreased since 2006. Bribery is up in several countries around the globe, namely in Asia-Pacific and South-East Europe, according to the report.

“This year’s Global Corruption Barometer has made it clear that too often, people must part with their hard-earned money to pay for services that should be free,” said TI Chair Huguette Labelle.

The poor, both in developing and developed nations, suffer most from bribes, the report found.

“The poorest in all societies are the ones hit the hardest by bribery... they face the most demands for bribes and they are most likely to pay. This in turn means that corruption acts as a regressive tax that increases income inequality,” according to the barometer.


Judges, politicians, police

Ukrainians were asked to rate 14 social institutions for corruption. The judiciary was deemed most corrupt, scoring 4.2 on a 5-point scale. Political parties, parliament and police were not far behind, with 4.1 points each, demonstrating a very slight improvement over the 4.2 scores the institutions recorded one year ago.

Andriy Osipov, the president of the Kyiv-based Corruption Counteraction Committee (CCC), agreed that the country’s legal system is most prone to corruption.

“People constantly turn to our organization with complaints about corruption. Courts and police are most frequently accused,” he said.

Religious bodies were perceived as least prone to corruption in Ukraine, scoring only 2.3 points.

The barometer’s authors pointed to certain regional specifics, noting that bribery in the education and health sectors is prevailing in the former Soviet states, including Ukraine. Ukraine’s education system and medical services scored 3.8 and 4 points respectively.


Payola pessimism

The 2007 barometer recorded a pessimistic mood regarding the future of corruption.

“Public expectations about the extent of corruption in the future have become gloomier when compared to the Barometer 2003, with 54 percent of respondents feeling that corruption would increase in the coming years – up from 43 percent four years ago,” according to the report.

“In 2007, only one in every five respondents expected the level of corruption to decrease in the near future.”

Ukrainians were among the pessimists, with 38 percent saying corruption will increase in the next three years and only 18 believing it will decrease. Forty-four percent said corruption will stay the same.

Osipov confirmed that public attitudes concerning corruption are more negative than positive in Ukraine.

“Lack of political stability and reforms contributes to the growth of corruption,” he concluded.

People across the world are not satisfied with their governments’ efforts to eliminate corruption, the study found.

“Worldwide, the general consensus is that government efforts to stop corruption are not effective and that corruption will increase in the near future.”

The overwhelming majority of Ukrainian respondents – 70 percent – said that the government’s efforts to curb corruption are ineffective and do not believe the situation will improve.