About 81 per cent of private business people do not trust the judiciary, according to a recent poll by the Vitosha Research agency on corruption in small business, unveiled last Wednesday. The poll was just one of many signs of the divorce between business and the judicial system. IVAN VATAHOV tells the tale.
THE research was conducted by Vitosha Research in July among 611 managers of small, medium and micro enterprises.
Half of them said they had made under-the-counter payments when granted a public procurement contract.
Sixty-six per cent identified lack of information on public funding as the main reason for corruption, while 45 per cent noted the lack of access to information about the decision-making process regarding the administrative services.
The research showed that 68 per cent believed Government bodies and the judiciary are either inefficient or choose not to get involved.
The strongest factors for the spread of corruption are the efficiency of bribes, lack of control and the poorly functioning law administration system.
According to social analyst Alexander Stoyanov, public expectations regarding corruption have changed since 1998 and ethical prerequisites have been created to fight this phenomenon. Still, counter-corruption efforts cannot yield immediate results.
International representative surveys show that Bulgaria has lower corruption levels in the state administration than the Czech Republic and identical to those in Poland.
Vitosha Research social analysts commented that corruption thrives in the private companies, as well, where staffers may take undue advantage of the company for which they work. In the private sector, however, control lies with company managers.
The fact that corruption is one of the most serious problems of Bulgaria’s transition was never doubted. However, this problem deepens because no matter how well it is analysed and discovered, nothing serious is done to fight corruption. The current Government came to power with the promise to mount the corruption and send the guilty of it to prison. Not that the promise was new, as it was given before, but the enthusiasm of the incumbents gave some food for thought.
What are the results of the fight so far?
A total of 910 people were convicted on charges of corruption and malfeasance in office between January 1, 1999 and July 31, 2002, Petar Petkov, Head of the Malfeasance in Office and Corruption department of the Supreme Cassation Prosecution Office, told participants in a debate on combating corruption last Friday.
Eighty of those people were sentenced for bribe taking – 20 in 1999, 25 in 2000 and 2001 each, 10 in the first half of 2002. At the moment, there are 601 legal proceedings launched against people suspected of corruption, including officials who occupy high positions, Petkov said.
The role of the judiciary in combating corruption was supposed to be the main topic on the agenda of the last Friday’s discussion. However, instead of solving problems, discussions turned into an exchange of accusations between the executive and the judiciary about which was more corrupt.
Justice Minister Anton Stankov, chairman of an interdepartmental commission on coordination of the efforts for fighting corruption, was probably the most reasonable among the speakers.
He focused on the leading role of the judiciary in the fight against corruption and the corrupt within the judicial system. Stankov backed the introduction of functional immunity for the members of the judiciary through constitutional amendments. In his view, the implementation of this initiative has become pressing.
The introduction of fixed terms of office and rotation of the members of the judiciary will enhance the performance in the judiciary branch; an ethical code of the magistrate should also be adopted, he said.
Stankov emphasised the inadequacy of courtrooms and the need to improve the working conditions for the members of the judiciary.
Deputy Prosecutor General Hristo Manchev said that the budget allocation for the judicial branch accounting for 0.3 per cent of the national budget was insufficient and compared it to the allocations in developed democratic states, where it was about 2 to 4 per cent. The Supreme Cassation Prosecution Office investigated 11 former ministers, including three deputy prime ministers. Indictments implicating three ministers have been filed in court, said Manchev.
Sofia District Court chairman Nelly Kutskova said it was necessary to establish an internal independent unit for fighting corruption within the judiciary. It should include investigators, prosecutors and judges that should be elected through competition and given job rating on a periodical basis.
It was a myth that the judicial system was corrupt. The court worked a lot but with low efficiency, according to Kutskova. In her view there was a deficit of procedural discipline that could be overcome by reducing the possibility to adjourn cases to a minimum.
These exchanges of accusations and conclusions on the inefficiency of the judicial system have become part of the everyday life in Bulgaria. But corruption is never solved through new legislation or administrative measures. The most important thing is to change the mentality of the people and make them disapprove and even fight corruption.
However, even in this case the executive should serve as an example of transparency and integrity. Which does not appear to be the case in Bulgaria. And top executives admit this.
Last week Deputy Prime Minister Kostadin Paskalev said that public procurement contracts remained the biggest source of corruption.
Speaking at the annual meeting of local authorities in Bulgaria, Paskalev, who is also Minister of Regional Development and Public Works, said public procurement contracts were also a cause of the problem of inefficient use of financial resources for capital expenditure in municipalities.
There was total chaos with the distribution of the financial resources at central level, Paskalev said.
Very often central Government departments implemented projects on the territory of a municipality and huge financial resources flowed into it, while at the same time the municipality complained of fund shortages. There was no one to control this process, he said.
In order to solve the problem of corruption in Bulgarian business, some MPs from the National Movement Simeon II found it attractive to stick to somewhat exotic models. They appear to have become focussed on the idea of lobbying as a form of corruption.
The NMSII won the backing of much of Bulgarian business for its attempt to regulate paid political lobbying in the country through a Lobbying Bill.
The proponents of the bill, nine MPs from the NMSII, received last week a high-profile endorsement of their efforts to inform the public on who lobbies with the country’s state institutions. Leaders of Vuzrazhdane business club, which groups leading local businessmen, met with Emil Koshlukov and Borislav Tsekov to discuss the new bill, which was tabled in Parliament at the end of July this year.
The entrepreneurs hailed the bill as a means of dealing with corruption and MPs serving business interests. Bulgaria’s political parties are largely positive on the regulations in the bill, which suggest that the Lobbying Bill will clear the country’s Parliament without a hitch.
The MP from the Bulgarian Socialist Party Yanaki Stoilov even proposed that people who lobby with politicians or senior public servants for money, register their activity in public registers at the Parliament and every ministry. The MP from the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, Cetin Kazak, downsized the possible benefits of the new bill with the argument that Bulgarians were too resourceful.
Even now it is not difficult to buy people in Government, Vazrazhdane’s Stoyan Denchev said in a Darik radio interview, commenting on the bill. According to him, big business is not a generator of corruption because big business people know that the law gives them what they need.
Political lobbying will be made lawful, wrote Trud daily specifying that lobbyists would be able to finance election campaigns. The paper voiced hope that if the law proved efficient, it could put an end to alleged cases of corruption.
Dnevnik said that it was good to have such law but noted, however, that the bill paid little attention to transparency unlike similar laws of the countries, whose practices are usually copied by local lawmakers.
24 Chassa wrote that if a business person wants to pose a question to a Russian minister he pays $120 000.
But it seemed few in the country seemed to realise that lobbying could turn into a new form of corruption. That people who have the money to provide serious amounts of money for bribes now will be providing them no matter whether what they do is called corruption, or lobbying, or advocacy.
THE research was conducted by Vitosha Research in July among 611 managers of small, medium and micro enterprises.
Half of them said they had made under-the-counter payments when granted a public procurement contract.
Sixty-six per cent identified lack of information on public funding as the main reason for corruption, while 45 per cent noted the lack of access to information about the decision-making process regarding the administrative services.
The research showed that 68 per cent believed Government bodies and the judiciary are either inefficient or choose not to get involved.
The strongest factors for the spread of corruption are the efficiency of bribes, lack of control and the poorly functioning law administration system.
According to social analyst Alexander Stoyanov, public expectations regarding corruption have changed since 1998 and ethical prerequisites have been created to fight this phenomenon. Still, counter-corruption efforts cannot yield immediate results.
International representative surveys show that Bulgaria has lower corruption levels in the state administration than the Czech Republic and identical to those in Poland.
Vitosha Research social analysts commented that corruption thrives in the private companies, as well, where staffers may take undue advantage of the company for which they work. In the private sector, however, control lies with company managers.
The fact that corruption is one of the most serious problems of Bulgaria’s transition was never doubted. However, this problem deepens because no matter how well it is analysed and discovered, nothing serious is done to fight corruption. The current Government came to power with the promise to mount the corruption and send the guilty of it to prison. Not that the promise was new, as it was given before, but the enthusiasm of the incumbents gave some food for thought.
What are the results of the fight so far?
A total of 910 people were convicted on charges of corruption and malfeasance in office between January 1, 1999 and July 31, 2002, Petar Petkov, Head of the Malfeasance in Office and Corruption department of the Supreme Cassation Prosecution Office, told participants in a debate on combating corruption last Friday.
Eighty of those people were sentenced for bribe taking – 20 in 1999, 25 in 2000 and 2001 each, 10 in the first half of 2002. At the moment, there are 601 legal proceedings launched against people suspected of corruption, including officials who occupy high positions, Petkov said.
The role of the judiciary in combating corruption was supposed to be the main topic on the agenda of the last Friday’s discussion. However, instead of solving problems, discussions turned into an exchange of accusations between the executive and the judiciary about which was more corrupt.
Justice Minister Anton Stankov, chairman of an interdepartmental commission on coordination of the efforts for fighting corruption, was probably the most reasonable among the speakers.
He focused on the leading role of the judiciary in the fight against corruption and the corrupt within the judicial system. Stankov backed the introduction of functional immunity for the members of the judiciary through constitutional amendments. In his view, the implementation of this initiative has become pressing.
The introduction of fixed terms of office and rotation of the members of the judiciary will enhance the performance in the judiciary branch; an ethical code of the magistrate should also be adopted, he said.
Stankov emphasised the inadequacy of courtrooms and the need to improve the working conditions for the members of the judiciary.
Deputy Prosecutor General Hristo Manchev said that the budget allocation for the judicial branch accounting for 0.3 per cent of the national budget was insufficient and compared it to the allocations in developed democratic states, where it was about 2 to 4 per cent. The Supreme Cassation Prosecution Office investigated 11 former ministers, including three deputy prime ministers. Indictments implicating three ministers have been filed in court, said Manchev.
Sofia District Court chairman Nelly Kutskova said it was necessary to establish an internal independent unit for fighting corruption within the judiciary. It should include investigators, prosecutors and judges that should be elected through competition and given job rating on a periodical basis.
It was a myth that the judicial system was corrupt. The court worked a lot but with low efficiency, according to Kutskova. In her view there was a deficit of procedural discipline that could be overcome by reducing the possibility to adjourn cases to a minimum.
These exchanges of accusations and conclusions on the inefficiency of the judicial system have become part of the everyday life in Bulgaria. But corruption is never solved through new legislation or administrative measures. The most important thing is to change the mentality of the people and make them disapprove and even fight corruption.
However, even in this case the executive should serve as an example of transparency and integrity. Which does not appear to be the case in Bulgaria. And top executives admit this.
Last week Deputy Prime Minister Kostadin Paskalev said that public procurement contracts remained the biggest source of corruption.
Speaking at the annual meeting of local authorities in Bulgaria, Paskalev, who is also Minister of Regional Development and Public Works, said public procurement contracts were also a cause of the problem of inefficient use of financial resources for capital expenditure in municipalities.
There was total chaos with the distribution of the financial resources at central level, Paskalev said.
Very often central Government departments implemented projects on the territory of a municipality and huge financial resources flowed into it, while at the same time the municipality complained of fund shortages. There was no one to control this process, he said.
In order to solve the problem of corruption in Bulgarian business, some MPs from the National Movement Simeon II found it attractive to stick to somewhat exotic models. They appear to have become focussed on the idea of lobbying as a form of corruption.
The NMSII won the backing of much of Bulgarian business for its attempt to regulate paid political lobbying in the country through a Lobbying Bill.
The proponents of the bill, nine MPs from the NMSII, received last week a high-profile endorsement of their efforts to inform the public on who lobbies with the country’s state institutions. Leaders of Vuzrazhdane business club, which groups leading local businessmen, met with Emil Koshlukov and Borislav Tsekov to discuss the new bill, which was tabled in Parliament at the end of July this year.
The entrepreneurs hailed the bill as a means of dealing with corruption and MPs serving business interests. Bulgaria’s political parties are largely positive on the regulations in the bill, which suggest that the Lobbying Bill will clear the country’s Parliament without a hitch.
The MP from the Bulgarian Socialist Party Yanaki Stoilov even proposed that people who lobby with politicians or senior public servants for money, register their activity in public registers at the Parliament and every ministry. The MP from the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, Cetin Kazak, downsized the possible benefits of the new bill with the argument that Bulgarians were too resourceful.
Even now it is not difficult to buy people in Government, Vazrazhdane’s Stoyan Denchev said in a Darik radio interview, commenting on the bill. According to him, big business is not a generator of corruption because big business people know that the law gives them what they need.
Political lobbying will be made lawful, wrote Trud daily specifying that lobbyists would be able to finance election campaigns. The paper voiced hope that if the law proved efficient, it could put an end to alleged cases of corruption.
Dnevnik said that it was good to have such law but noted, however, that the bill paid little attention to transparency unlike similar laws of the countries, whose practices are usually copied by local lawmakers.
24 Chassa wrote that if a business person wants to pose a question to a Russian minister he pays $120 000.
But it seemed few in the country seemed to realise that lobbying could turn into a new form of corruption. That people who have the money to provide serious amounts of money for bribes now will be providing them no matter whether what they do is called corruption, or lobbying, or advocacy.
