The Bulgarians: We Live in a Corrupted State Standartnews - 2004/4/15
Nearly all Bulgarians reckon they live in a corrupted state, and nearly 3/5 of the Romanians say they have given bribes, the research of the sociological agency GfK, published in Prague and cited by Reuters, show. The poll showed that 96% of the Bulgarian nationals reckon they live in a corrupted state. The Bulgarians brand the customs officers as most corrupted state employees, 'Coalition 2000' aired in Sofia meanwhile. 70,6% of the Bulgarians think that these employees are the most corrupted, show the data of the corruption monitoring held by Vitosha research among 1,080 pollees from March, 1 till March, 16, 2004. 22,3 of the Bulgarian nationals maintain they have been asked for gifts and favours while crossing the border. The representatives of the judicial system and the policemen come straight after the customs officers in corruption. 36,5 of the Bulgarians reckon that the public servants in the ministries take cash. The images of the politicians, the party leaders and the MPs also find their place in the minds of the people as corrupted persons. There has been seen a tendency of increasing the frequency and the size of the bribes in the business sector, Alexander Stoyanov from Vitosha research informed. While with the citizens, the percentage of corruption acts at their contacts with state employees has been reduced, he added. According to the data from the research, the corruption deals where the bribes are between 100 and 500 levs has gone up twofold. There have already been registered and cases of bribes between 500 and 5,000 levs. Such cases were not registered in the previous two polls of Vitosha research in July and October 2003. Now, 1.3% of the pollees admit they were asked to give bribes from between 1,000 and 5,000 levs. The sums, bigger than 1,000 levs, are more frequently seen in the business sector, the poll shows. There is a tendency of reducing the number of the concluded corruption deals. According to the analyses of Vitosha research, their decrease in number is considerable - by over 30,000 cases per month. In May, 2003, 88,000 citizens were involved in such shady deals, in July, 2003 - their number was 100,000, while 3 months later their number went up to 114,000. In March, 2004, the number of the people involved in corruption deals was about 80,000. This makes 1.24% of all Bulgarians of the full legal age. Thanks to the soft and dialogic measures the cabinet undertook, it can be seen an increase of the marks on the effectiveness of its actions in the fight against corruptions, the data of the poll show. Despite that, about 35-40% of the Bulgarians think the cabinet does nothing to fight corruption.


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