Some Sow Corruption, Others Reap the Consequences
The village of Kindeika is located on the outskirts of Kherson. There is only one store, and many older people who have to trudge there to buy bread. With this in view, Serhiy and Natalia Boiko launched a humane business — daily home delivery of food to the elderly. Naturally, the storekeeper, a former policemen, whose income has somewhat fallen because of this competition, was not exactly enraptured with this. He asked the neighborhood policeman, a friend of his, to mediate. The latter several times stopped Natalia’s van bound for customers (“for unauthorized trade”) and then even began a court action, forging, on her behalf, a “penitent” letter requesting to hear the case in absentia and then adding (in fun or stupidity?) that the “offender” was disclaiming her signature. The judge was no better than the neighborhood policeman. He looked through the police major’s prejudicial attitude and related violations of law, and fined the lady entrepreneur without even summoning her to court (it seems they had no envelopes). Activists of the Kherson regional coalition, Partnership for a Transparent Society, helped to partly restore justice. Still, the local sheriff was not called to account.
This case was cited at a conference now underway in Kyiv on the initiative of this program. And, although the forum’s theme sounded rather vague — “How to Ensure Transparency in Regulating Small and Medium Business” — the participants must have been aware that the point was nothing else but controlling corruption. In particular, US Ambassador to Ukraine John Edward Herbst noted that corruption hindered the development of small and medium business in Ukraine because this kind of enterprise is especially vulnerable to it. While they account for 70% of Europe’s GDP, their share in that of Ukraine is a mere 10%. The ambassador stressed that corruption control in Ukraine required political will, the mobilization of all societal forces, along with a dialog between the public and government. Mr. Herbst emphasized that corruption undermines democratic institutions, slows economic growth, and jeopardizes civil liberties. This situation should raise concern in the Ukrainian government and citizens of the country, for corruption can hinder the implementation of Ukraine’s plans to enter Western economic and security institutions, the ambassador said.
Yet, the impression is that our society is also fed up with the sway of the corrupt. 86% of our citizens are convinced that corruption is rife in Ukraine. Asked about the consequences of corruption for Ukrainian society, 40% of those polled named impoverishment of the people, and 30% singled out complete disappointment with the state or an ever- widening gap between the rich and poor. Hence the conclusion: the common people and the nongovernmental organizations they have set up should take a more active part in combating corruption.
This idea is shared by 72% of those polled by Partnership for a Transparent Society.
It is too early, however, to expect the whole country to embark on a crusade against corruption tomorrow. The survey shows that 7% of those polled have never come across corruption, 62% have occasionally, 20% have always come across it, and 43% have given bribes, with each fifth of them noting that bribe was the first thing that occurred to him/her when he/she stepped over the threshold of a bureaucrat’s office. A fourth of all those polled indicated that they attempted to find people who might help them solve a problem. Only 8% turned to administrative bodies, the media, or NGOs for help in fighting corruption.
This is why it is perhaps so easy to obtain the honorary title of Don Quixote tilting at windmills. Incidentally, this title was jokingly bestowed on Volodymyr Stretovych, head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Combating Organized Crime and Corruption. In his view, a corrupt judicial system stymies the development of democracy in Ukraine.
Mr. Stretovych believes that the 2004 budget has UAH 3.5-6 billion that are practically missing from both the revenues and expenditures and therefore must have been stolen. “It is the political component that allows corruption to flourish under the state’s roof,” Mr. Stretovych claimed. He also gave one more example: on July 11, 2003, only 96 people’s deputies voted for the law on governmental financial oversight of the expenses of individuals authorized to perform official functions.
