NGO: Latvia knee-deep in corruption

  • 2005-10-19
  • By Aaron Eglitis
RIGA - Corruption watchdog Trans-parency International has once again named Latvia as the second most corrupt state based on perception in the EU. According to a survey released on Oct. 18, only Poles ranked themselves as being more crooked among the EU's 25 member states.

On a worldwide scale, the Baltic state was ranked the 51st most corrupt country in terms of perception among various segments of society, including business.

Although dismal, Latvia's 4.2 rating was a slight improvement from last year's 4.0. In 2002, the public placed the country even lower, at 3.7, and has shown incremental improvement every year.

Latvians are far more pessimistic about the state of corruption in their country than neighboring Estonia, which scored a 6.4 this year, while Lithuania came in at 4.8.

The incremental moves on the index are not particularly revealing since they could be a statistical aberration. Due to their reliance on perception, the rating could also be influenced by economic development, pessimism and a host of other factors.

Still, neither the Latvian government's moves to fight corruption, nor the country's anticorruption bureau, have had much of an effect, Delna reported.

"The Latvian anticorruption policy, formal legislative changes and organization of the Bureau for the Prevention and Combating of Corruption have not yielded the desired result," Roberts Putnis, head of Delna, said at the press conference releasing this year's index.

"We have made few steps and have spent millions, but without a result," he said.

Valts Kalnins, a corruption researcher and board member of Delna, the local chapter of Transparency International, commented, "We really cannot interpret every change. There are a lot of factors that go into the report."

He explained that by looking at index patterns over a number of years one could get a clearer picture. In this regards, he pointed out, Latvia is far less corrupt then it was in the mid-90's.

However, a direct correlation between income level and corruption is not always accurate, suggested one researcher with Transparency International. The expert cited data showing that, over the last 10 years, Ireland and Canada have struggled with their residents' perception of corruption, despite economic growth.

While Kalnins shared Putnis' opinion, Andris Vitenbergs, a spokesman for the Bureau for the Prevention and Combating of Corruption, disagreed.

"The positive trend on the index shows the consistent nature of Latvia's anticorruption policy and activities," Vitenbergs told the Baltic News Service. "Unlike in its neighboring countries, in Latvia the index has not undergone periods of decline. This suggests that the public is becoming increasingly aware of the problems of corruption and appreciate the work done by the state institutions in curbing corruption."

Vitenbergs also pointed out that the index had improved in Latvia from a score of 2.1 six years ago.

The data only reflects the public's perception of corruption in the country, and does not reveal actual levels of corruption - a far more difficult, if not impossible area to study.

The neighboring countries of Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, all score at or near the top of the world's index. It is little surprise that the most corrupt countries in the EU, according to perception, are also the poorest. Of the new member states, only Estonia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta escaped the bottom third.

Last year Latvia shared the second-to-last spot with Slovakia, but this year holds the position by itself.