The Public Is Becoming Increasingly Intolerant To Corruption BTA - 1999/12/14
The public is becoming increasingly intolerant to the
manifestations of corruption and suspicious of the sincereness
and seriousness of the incumbents' efforts to fight it, and
increasingly convinced that corruption is widely spread.
These conclusions are contained in the report of the
Coalition 2000 NGO on corruption in 1999, which was made public
Monday at a social-political forum at Boyana residence. The
event was attended by top officials of the Government,
Parliament, judiciary, by politicians and NGOs. Corruption is
the third most important problem for Bulgarians following
unemployment and low incomes. The main corruption factors are
the wish of people in office to become rich quickly, low wages,
imperfect legislation, the lack of strict administrative control,
personal interests and the inefficient judiciary. Most corrupt
are customs officers, tax men, magistrates, privatization
officers and policemen, the statistics in the report shows.
Between 200,000 and 250,000 Bulgarians are forced to give bribes
once a month, according to data in the report. The number of
instance of bribery is relatively stable and corruption pressure
is dropping, said Alexander Stoyanov, Director of Vitosha
research. Twenty-nine people have been tried for taking bribes
in 1998. The main "fighters" against corruption are NGOs and
media - over 2,000 newspaper stories and over 80 radio and TV
programmes have been dedicated to the issue, said Stoyanov.
There is a discrepancy between public expectations and actions as
corruption is a political rather than a judicial problem, said
Evgenii Dainov of the Centre for Social Practice. In his view,
this conclusion is confirmed by the results of the local
elections and the drop in the confidence in the incumbents. A
poll in 34 municipalities showed that people are withdrawing from
the social contract as they believe that the incumbents'
decisions are influenced by a wish for personal aggrandizement.
For the man in the street corruption is the rule and not an
exception from the rule, said Dainov, according to whom the
public "does not accept the clientele-like structure of power and
insists on holding a dialogue". To counteract successfully
corruption moral and political will are needed, Union of
Democratic Forces floor leader Ekaterina Mihailova said. In her
opinion, the upcoming adoption of a series of acts - on the
political parties, the access to information and the public
register, will reduce the prerequisites for corruption. Deputy
Prime Minister Alexander Bozhkov voiced disagreement with
participants in the forum that there is no transparency in the
privatization through talks with potential buyers. Ognyan
Shentov, Director of the Centre for Research of Democracy,
proposed that this method be applied only in extreme cases and
after a respective Council of Ministers' decision. The General
Customs Directorate is drafting a package of measures against
corruption among customs officers which will be made public in a
special report, said General Customs Directorate chief Plamen
Minev. Interior Minister Bogomil Bonev said that a
decriminalization of Article 307 of the Penal Code is being
drafted, which envisages criminal liability for people creating a
situation or conditions for giving or taking bribes with the aim
of exposing the person giving or receiving bribes. Lawyers
believe that this will open operative opportunities for
increasing the exposure of corruption. The US notes the
political will of the Bulgarian Government to fight corruption
and will support its efforts in this direction, said US
Ambassador Richard Miles, who also attended the forum.