Government inefficiency and political corruption most distinctive

Transparency International published a new Global Corruption Barometer
(GCB) 2009 that looks into how corruption affects the regular people and offers indications of the forms and the
scope of corruption from the point of view of citizens worldwide. Barometer for 2009 presents results of public
opinion research on corruption and citizens’ experiences with bribe. This year’s GCB assesses how much,
according to citizens, the corruption is present in key institutions and public services, measures citizens’ attitudes
on governments’ efforts in the fight against corruption, and for the first time this year it includes the issue of the
presence of “state capture” phenomenon. GCB 2009 represents attitudes of 73,132 citizens in the overall of 69
countries, including Bosnia and Herzegovina in the group of countries of Western Balkans.

As in the previous years, corruption is, according to citizens’ views, the most present in political parties, which is
also the case for Bosnia and Herzegovina, and civil service is emphasised as the most corrupt for the region of
Western Balkans countries.

This year’s research also dealt with the issue of the private sector practice to use bribe in order to influence
decision making and regulations in the country, which is often called as “state capture’ phenomenon. In Western
Balkans countries around 60% of people questioned think that this is a common practice, which is confirmed by
other Transparency International analyses that point out to this problem as one of the greatest problems in Bosnia
and Herzegovina. When it comes to government efficiency and its anti-corruption activities, citizens expressed their
discontent again, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina the number of people who think that government authorities do
enough in the fight against corruption decreased 10% in comparison to 2007. These results match the corruption
perceptions survey carried out by Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina that year after year shows
increasing dissatisfaction of citizens regarding the efforts of institutions to fight corruption as one of the most
damaging occurrences in a society. This year’s Barometer pointed out to relatively high readiness of citizens to give
bribe, and the results show that citizens are most willing to bribe police and that almost a quarter of those
questioned who had encounters with police in the past year paid a bribe. At the same time, the willingness to report
bribery is very little, and the reason for this, when it comes to Western Balkans, is a fear of possible repercussions.

This research is another indicator to authorized institutions and authorities in BiH that they must show more
willingness and accountability in the fight against corruption, and that it is a high time for more aggressive and
fearse measures to be undertaken in order to eradicate corruption, especially in order to avoid new corruption
affairs in the area of privatization and public procurement of which BiH citizens have been witnesses in the previous
couple of years.