Ukraine ranked 16th most corrupt among 85 countries around the globe
by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau
KYIV - Transparency International, an international non-government organization that fights corruption in the international business sector, has rated Ukraine the 16th most corrupt country in the world, according to the Ukrainian Legal Foundation. Latvia is the 15th most corrupt country, Russia rated 10th and Cameroon rated first.
The foundation, which distributed the Transparency International report in Ukraine, also released the results of an opinion poll it commissioned on the views of Ukraine's populace on corruption. The police, hospitals and universities were rated among the most corrupt elements of Ukrainian society.
"More than 60 percent of the populace believes that Ukraine is doing little or nothing about corruption," said Mykola Poludiunnii, director of the foundation's Ethics Program, and assistant minister of justice under Serhii Holovatyi.
Mr. Holovatyi initiated an anti-corruption program in 1997 at the behest of President Leonid Kuchma that met strong resistance from government bureaucrats and still has not been fully implemented.
Transparency International, a coalition of NGOs whose aim is to develop international standards and programs in the fight against corruption, released the report on the level of corruption in 85 countries around the world for 1998. It rated the countries on a scale of 1 to 10, with a score of 10 indicating a corruption-free environment for doing business, while a score of 1 meant a country heavily influenced by corruption. The least courrpt country is Denmark ranked No. 1 on the list and receiving a perfect score of 10.
Placing 68th on the list, Ukraine received a rating of 2.8 and is sandwiched between Bolivia and Latvia. The only European or newly independent states receiving a lower score than Ukraine are Latvia with a 2.7 rating, and Russia, which placed 76th with a score of 2.4. Most of the countries below Ukraine are found in either the Far East, Africa or South and Central America.
Canada placed sixth while the United States, considered a bit more corrupt according to the rating, placed 18th from the top.
"We expect that the publication of the index will provoke governments to battle [corruption] in their countries," explained Peter Aigen, the director of Transparency International, according to a Ukrainian Legal Foundation press release.
In the press release, Transparency International, which was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Berlin, warns that the index is not all-encompassing because for some countries too little information exists to rate them and should be interpreted with care.
"The press will be in error if it uses headlines to state that any one country is the most corrupt in the world according to the data of the index," said Dr. Johann Graf Lemsdorf, a consultant for the development of the rating index.
Among the information that Transparency International utilized were reports by organizations such as the World Bank, Gallup International, the World Economic Forum and the Harvard Institute for International Development.
Regardless of how the results are interpreted and used in Ukraine, Mr. Poludiunnii of the Ukrainian Legal Foundation does not believe that publication of the rating will help invigorate the fight against corruption in Ukraine. "The government of Ukraine has not, does not and will not do anything in the battle against corruption," said Mr. Poludiunnii.
He said that corruption in Ukraine is not a problem caused by the poorness of the country or its political elites, but by an ongoing distribution of the wealth of the country among the new power structures formed after the destruction of the Ukrainian SSR and the Soviet Union.
"This is the way Ukraine is forming its economic classes," said Mr. Poludiunnii.
According to the poll that the Ukrainian Legal Foundation commissioned from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, a majority of Ukrainians agree that little is being done in Ukraine to fight corruption. The survey, which questioned more than 1,200 Ukrainians, found that 63.4 percent of the respondents agreed that "the authorities are not utilizing any means in the fight against bribery."
The central reasons for the lack of an effective anti-corruption program, as cited by the individuals surveyed, are: highly placed officials have too many privileges (61.2 percent agreed); budgets are misappropriated (50.6 percent); laws are not upheld (48.1 percent); government workers are dishonest and susceptible to bribes (46 percent); insufficient sanctions are written into the laws (36.5 percent).
Two-thirds of the respondents also agreed that a limited number of those in authority are responsible for the majority of corruption. These officials, according to the survey, are the ones who have privileges associated with their jobs that they can use for personal enrichment. Of those who agreed with the assumption, 39.1 percent stated that the corruptive influence was the extension of too many privileges to certain officials, while 37.8 percent identified immunity given national deputies and judges as the reason for extensive corruption.
The survey found that people believe corruption is most prevalent in the traffic control and auto inspection units of the militia. On a scale of 1 to 5, with a mark of 5 indicating "extensive corruption," traffic cops were given a rating of 4.17, Ukraine's medical system placed second with a rating of 4.09. Respondents also rated the state militia and the educational system as permeated with corruption and rated them both at 4.04. Ukraine's government ministries followed at 3.99.
Also high on the list were tax inspectors (3.89), the Parliament (3.88), the judiciary (3.82) and the presidential administration (3.71).
Seventy-six percent of those questioned responded that they believe corruption has become more prevalent since 1991, when the communist system disintegrated and Ukraine declared independence.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, October 11, 1998, No. 41, Vol. LXVI
| Home Page |