Struggle with Corruption
"Sticky fingers" Syndrome
AIM Skopje, May 14, 2000
In the last couple of years Macedonia has been increasingly faced with arious forms of organised crime which, according to analysts, is a by-product of uncompleted reforms of the legal and economic system, but also of non-compliance with legal principles and the rule of law.
What is especially worrying, as pointed out at various gatherings and meetings, as well as among citizens is evident corruption and other forms of abuse of official functions of high state officials and public servants as that speaks of the total absence of democratic control and responsibility of Government and state administration, which is far from it should be - a service for all citizens.
Judging by experiences in the world, which are regularly published by the Institute for the Study of Crime and Legal System, within UN, corruption is characteristic of states in which there is unlimited discretionary power of decision-making, without valid political, ethical and legal parameters which would envisage responsibility and transparency of the authorities and state administration.
Regrettably, Macedonia is one of such countries in transition. The rate of corruption is 7.7 percent and according to it Macedonia ranked 13 in the last year's report of the mentioned UN Institute. The international non-governmental organisation "Transparency International", which globally follows corruption and has its branches on all continents, has ranked Macedonia 63rd in the world. A national public opinion poll carried out arly this year by the Forum Centre for Strategic Studies and Documentation in cooperation with colleagues from Bulgaria and Albania, within a project entitled "Post-conflict stability and development of South-East Europe", ranked corruption as country's seventh most important problem.
Faced with this problem, citizens of Macedonia feel helpless and are simply forced to accept it as "a necessary evil", i.e. as the only way of completing any planned task or getting a service done. It is generally believed in the country that every third national of Macedonia of age was, one time or another, forced to give a bribe in order to exercise some of his rights guaranteed by the law.
Until now, none of the competent state bodies have fficially determined the extent of corruption. Or, if anyone has, that was never disclosed to the public. The last public opinion poll on this subject was carried out in December 1997. The results of the Institute for Sociological-Legal and Political Studies in Skoplje show that as much as 93 percent of 1,400 respondents were convinced that they would have to give bribe in order to exercise a right, and 45 percent of the interviewees stated that they had done it personally. It is generally believed that the health sector is the most corrupted one. As many as 246 pollees in the mentioned survey admitted of having bribed a doctor. Some 84 of them paid bribe to communal clerks, 83 to professors, 32 to an employee of the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund, 43 to a customs officer, and 19 citizens paid for some other service.
Women mostly bought pensions with bribe, men were forced to bribe communal officials and customs officers and students and pupils bribed their teachers and professors. It is quite certain that the results of a more recent survey would be drastically worse. Namely, it is an open secret that presently, bankers in charge of granting credits for small and medium enterprises, lowest government clerks and window clerks, high government representatives in charge of privatisation or sale of social capital to foreign investors, etc, are in high demand. Only means of payments differ and are constantly improved.
Everything has its price and systems of mediation have been precisely determined. At the moment, the most popular is "sponsoring" the publishing of books by university professors (the price ranges between DM 100 and 500), professors' and doctors' official trips for educational purposes (from DM 300 to 2,000 and more), cash payments to personal or gyro accounts of specific renown personalities from public services who were able to "help".
The usual practice is the payment of a percentage (10 percent being the most favourite share), depending on the service rendered. Official lunches or dinners do not count any more. Despite the fact that the Macedonian Government and its Ministers would never admit that, although the domestic public has lately started blaming them for it and the international community has been warning them about, bribe-taking and corruption have become an inevitable and recognisable way of life in these parts. Theft and stealing have acquired large-scale proportions with the blessing of the highest authorities, which is a fact whose gravity and adverse effects on the national development are yet to be assessed. There are no official estimates of this phenomena, and if there were any, the authorities were never too keen to publicise them.
According to a well-known Macedonian crime expert and police analyst, Professor Grozdan Cvetkovski, this is so despite the fact that security organs know full well where to look for such vice, as well as who is the boss of the green Mafia in the country, who is running the smuggling of cigarettes, alcohol, oil and its derivatives, who is in charge of prostitution and all other illegal activities of the modern times which are carried out in cahoots with the world Mafia, most frequently Albanian, Bulgarian, Russian and Serbian, as well as with the domestic power-holders. Regrettably, rarely anyone was brought to justice and punished for these activities. Data relating to the growth of crime rate in the country from 1995 to 1998, since it is impossible to obtain the latest ones, reveal some very interesting facts. In 1995 some 715 persons were convicted for criminal acts regarding public finances, payment operations and economy (main points of the alleged anti-corruption struggle). In 1995 some 18 persons were convicted for tax evasion, in 1996 - 8 persons, in 1997 – 18 and in 1998 - 30.
In the course of 1995 - 12 persons were charged for the abuse of official authority, i.e. more precisely for bribe-taking. In 1996 that number was 51, in 1997 - 16 and in 1998 - 11 persons. Last year judicial authorities received over 130 criminal reports of organised crime, but according to available information until today none of these was concluded with a court sentence. A very unpleasant impression was created by accusations exchanged between the police, prosecutor's office and courts about the quality of submitted reports, who was keeping them in drawers and for what reasons or why have they disappeared. Incidentally, only individual "small fry" are being arrested.
The latest example is the arrest of an under-secretary in the Trade Ministry who "fell for" marked bills. Concerning this case the official police report said that the gentleman in question, incidentally a renown economist with international reputation in his field, who got his job a year ago thanks to his party membership card in the ruling VMRO-DPMNE, was arrested because he took a bribe of DM 10 thousand for two licences he had issued to a businessman for the re-export of one thousand tons of Hungarian and Slovenian milk to Kosovo.
No one is touching the bigger fish, probably in fear of causing a domino effect. According to Professor Cvetkovski "corruption is a main tool of the organised crime everywhere", including Macedonia where it is considered a HIV virus of the Macedonian economy because of its range, depth and manner of spreading.
There is no cure for it and there will be none until the entire state apparatus, and not only the police, prosecutor's office and courts, join in the struggle against it. Unfortunately, that is not the case in Macedonia. Economic and political analysts have been warning that the country is threatened by a kind of "Columbisation" because the achieved rate of corruption is close to the one existing in this Latin American state. Today, an "organised chaos" is ruling in Macedonia which has become a state of scandals and affairs which the authorities not only create, but also stimulate in specific stages. Many of its citizens, which media close to the opposition have frequently pointed out (especially the "Morning Gazette"), are convinced that Macedonia "is being transformed into a 'state of agreement' in which state and national interests are of no consequence, but only the inter-party agreements and personal interests of the ruling oligarchy. They have created an internal methodology of safe governing. The state is set up and functioning according to the same principle on the basis of which the coalition for change has been established and is functioning since 1998 when it came to power". Scandals and shady affairs are still happening without anyone being called to account for them, which just another argument in favour of the claim that the rule of law "doesn't live here any more".
According to a well-known economic analyst, Natalija Nikolovska, the example of Macedonia is the best paradigm of extreme modification of the course of socio-economic development under the influence of politics. In Nikolovska's opinion, changes have taken such a turn as if a "wild tribe has occupied a civilised nation and is now destroying it, selling, giving away and plundering all its wealth, firing people from work and eradicating every trace of civilisational progress in that country. In that process it is unscrupulously lying about various foreign investments, alleged increased employment, improvement of living conditions, country's advancement towards membership in the European Union, as if citizens have taken leave of all senses so that they cannot see and feel the daily poverty and manipulations they are exposed to".
It is an open secret that corruption has deeply permeated all government transactions with major economic facilities, the most famous of which is the sale of the Skopje refinery "Okta" to the "Greek Hellenic Petroleum" under conditions which even all Ministers in the Government are not familiar with, and on which deputies to the Parliament were not asked to decide, although it is so envisaged by the Constitution. The latest example is the sale of the Bitolj Sugar Mill, the only one in the country, to the Austrian "Anstal" which has behind it a controversial Bulgarian corporation "Multi Group", which enjoys a rather bad reputation in world business circles. Workers, who have bought the factory on the stock exchange, are denying the new owners access to the factory and claim that they have proof which they will present in court during a trial against the Privatisation Agency which had illegally robbed them of their stock. This was also confirmed by a special Governmental Commission, as well as the Constitutional Court, which examined this case. Now, there is a rumour going around that the problem would not be to cancel the sale of the sugar mill, but rather to return the commission which one of the high government officials had received for mediating in this deal. Rumour has it, that over DM 200 thousand are in question.
Macedonia doesn't have legal basis for an efficient struggle against corruption and organised crime. In 1997 the state ratified several international conventions, but has not yet found the strength to adopt a new set of anti-corruption laws. Those prepared long ago have just recently seen the light under the strong pressure of the European Commission and Council of Europe. According to Prime Minister Ljubco Georgijevski, they have already passed the Government procedure and will soon be submitted to Parliament for adoption. It seems that March promises of the European Commissioner Chris Paten given from the rostrum of the Macedonian Parliament have finally been taken seriously. An additional incentive in that direction was a recent discussion held in Sarajevo, within the Stability Pact, at which all countries members of the Pact which are expecting donations for their development, launched an initiative against corruption and reached an agreement to incorporate in their national legislation European and world rules from this field.
In other words, Macedonia is committed to do everything that is required of it and to allow constant monitoring of the European Commission, Council of Europe, OSCE and the World Bank. A National Committee for Combating Corruption was established and its coordinator appointed. These moves are not only encouraging, but also raise hopes that a serious and organised battle against corruption and other forms of crime will finally begin. However, it is a big question mark how much time it will take for the results to become visible.
AIM Skopje
BRANKA NANEVSKA