43% OF POLLED IN ARMENIA GAVE BRIBES LAST YEAR: TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL

ArmInfo
2009-06-03 14:11:00

ArmInfo. 43% of polled in Armenia gave bribes last year. Every 1 out
of 10 polled said that he or his family gave a bribe over the last
12 months, The 2009 Global Corruption Barometer, a global public
opinion survey released today by Transparency International (TI)
says. It found that over half (54%) of those polled believe that
the private sector uses bribes to influence public policy, laws and
regulations or, in other words, captures the state.

As illustrated in Figure 1, this perception is particularly widespread
in the Newly Independent States (NIS) : more than 70% of the surveyed
pointed to the existence of state capture in their countries.

Armenia is the second after Azerbaijan (46%) in the NIS by this
indicator.

Only 2% of the polled in Georgia said they gave bribes. So Georgia
is not the most corrupted country in the NIS. In roughly a fifth
of the countries and territories surveyed, including countries home
to some of the world’s major financial centres, such as Hong Kong,
Luxembourg and Switzerland, respondents identified the private sector
as the most corrupt institution (see Table 1). The Barometer also
showed that half of respondents are willing to actively support clean
business (see Table 2). Armenia is placed in a group of countries,
where 46-64% of the interviewed are ready to pay more to buy from
corruption-free companies.

All the polled indicated the police as an institute demanding
bribes more than others. One of four people having any relations
to police worldwide gave bribes last year. 20% of the polled bribed
representatives of the judicial system.

The poll showed that the governments do not take effective measures
to combat corruption, say 56% of the polled. In Armenia 48% share
this opinion.

Ukraine more than other states in NIS (73%) mistrusts in the fight
against corruption. Then go Azerbaijan (62%), Russia (52%), and Georgia
(21%).

The polled considered the most corrupt institutions the political
parties (68%), parliaments (63%) and civil service (60%). 33% of the
polled in Armenia called the judicial system the most corrupt. 18%
indicated at officials and 13% at mass media.

Only 1 of 4 people who gave bribes last year made an official
complaint.

This shows that few believe in efficiency of anti-corruption measures.

The survey, with more than 73,000 respondents from 69 countries and
territories around the world was conducted by Gallup International
as a part of Voice of the People Survey in 50 countries and by other
polling organizations in 19 countries between October 2008 and February
2009. In Armenia it was carried out by the Georgian Opinion Research
Business International organization for 1,000 respondents in the period
from January 25 till February 5, 2009 through face-to-face interviews.