The New Anatolian, Turkey
July 28, 2006
WB says Turkey tackles corruption successfully
EkoTürk News Agency / Ankara
The World Bank released a new report titled `Anticorruption in
Transition 3-Who is Succeeding … And Why? ‘ taking a detailed look at
firm-level survey data and concluding that the studied region’s
progress in reducing corruption is unmistakable.
The study is the third in a series of World Bank reports tracking
levels of corruption in enterprise-state interactions since 1999.
Like its predecessors, the report draws on the Business Environment
and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS), a joint initiative of the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank.
The triennial survey, conducted most recently in 2005, covers 26
former socialist countries and Turkey, as well as five western
European comparator countries. The non-transition European
comparators are Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain. More
than 20,000 firms have been interviewed since the inception of BEEPS.
"Since 2002, firms in most countries are paying bribes less
frequently and in relatively smaller amounts, and they report
corruption to be less of a problem than in the past," explains James
Anderson, co-author and Senior Economist in the World Bank’s Europe
and Central Asia region, "The common assumption that corruption is
steadily worsening does not stand up to scrutiny."
"Strong leadership is a key weapon in the fight against corruption.
Every country that has made measurable progress in reducing
corruption has had a strong champion who made transparency and
accountability top priorities," explains Cheryl Gray, co-author of
the study and Sector Director in the World Bank’s ECA region.
The study also comments about Turkey where it stands out in a way.
Those parts say;
On general corruption:
`For the first time in 2004/5, the BEEPS also was conducted in a
number of nontransition countries, including five European
comparators: Greece, Ireland, Germany, Portugal, and Spain. A sixth
comparator country, Turkey, has been included in all rounds of the
survey. The results confirm the widespread assumption that corruption
tends to be worse intransition countries than in Western Europe,
indicating that most transition countries – including the eight new
members of the European Union in Central and Eastern Europe – still
have a way to go in improving accountability in government. However,
along some dimensions of corruption the nontransition European
comparators – most notably Greece and occasionally Portugal, Turkey,
and the eastern part of Germany – fared worse than many transition
countries.
As with other measures of corruption, the impact of state capture is
perceived by firms to be somewhat lower in several European
comparators – Germany, Ireland, and Spain – but relatively high in
Portugal and Turkey and at about the average for transition countries
in Greece.
Firms in most transition countries – other than perhaps Estonia and
Slovenia – still report significantly higher levels of corruption than
Western European comparators – most notably Ireland, Spain, and
Germany, as some indicators in Greece, Portugal, and
Turkey are not too different than those in the transition countries.
Bribery appears to have worsened from already high levels in the
Kyrgyz Republic, from more moderate levels in Serbia and Montenegro,
and from previously low levels in Armenia. Of the comparator
countries, corruption in the tax system appears relatively higher in
Greece and Portugal, moderate in Turkey, and very low in Germany,
Ireland, and Spain.
Portugal and Turkey appear to have levels of corruption in customs
that are comparable to most of the new EU members, while bribery in
customs appears to be very low in Germany, Greece, Ireland, and
Spain.
Turkey appears to be tackling corruption successfully through a wide
variety of policy and institutional reforms, including a strengthened
supreme audit institution and a law on `Freedom of Information for
Citizens’ enacted in 2003 that has led to a major expansion in the
distribution of information to the public through government
websites.’
