“Forget about the Corruption Perceptions Index. It’s not so important”

According to the chair of Transparency International (TI) Peter Eigen, there is nothing worse than a tandem between big companies and political parties, as such a union can lead to a takeover of power.

Therefore the state must be protected from such unions that are a source of corruption, as a man must be protected from a disease. And an organized civil society, Eigen is sure, is the key to implementation of transparent schemes in power and in combating corruption. He says that people should unite and, cooperating with business, influence the government, and change the reality. During his lecture “The role of civil society in fighting corruption” at Lviv Business School Eigen said that he had tried to mend the work of this triangle and that he knows for sure that this triangle works.

TI is an independent non-commercial worldwide organization with its headquarters located in Berlin. Its goal is to counteract corruption in international commercial agreements and on the national level via a network of its national subdivisions. There are more than 60 such subdivisions.

The members of the TI Advisory Board include Nobel Prize winner Oscar Arias Sanchez, executive secretary of the Global Coalition for Africa Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, Federal Judge John Noonan, former president of Germany Richard von Weizsaecker, and former minister of finance of Nepal Devendra Raj Panday.

The Day talked to the founder of the Transparency International Peter EIGEN.

In which country the model of fighting corruption is the most suitable for Ukraine to follow and why?

“We have seen that in the countries that have big corruption problems there are basically two principles that one should follow. One is that one should have a powerful civil society, to help the government, to help the private sector to fight corruption. Because the government very often cannot do it alone, the private sector companies, they cannot do it alone. And civil society organizations like Transparency International and others, they cannot do it alone, they have to work together. We call that a ‘magical triangle,’ when government, private sector, business, and civil society organizations, if they are independent, they all bring their own strengths and insights to the table, they can together deal with corruption.

PRIME MINISTER ARSENII YATSENIUK AT A GOVERNMENTAL SESSION CALLED A MEETING WITH LAW ENFORCERS AS FOR THE TRANSFERRING THE TOPMOST IMPORTANT CASES AGAINST CORRUPTED OFFICIALS. THE HEAD OF THE GOVERNMENT PROMISED TO INFORM ABOUT A CONCRETE LIST OF CRIMINAL CASE LAUNCHED WITH “FIGURES AND FACTS” / Photo by Artem SLIPACHUK, The Day

“And the second principle is a holistic approach, so we do not only look at punishment, the criminal law, but we also look at preventing corruption. And for that there should be many different tools in society. We believe in an integrity system, which has different components, like public procurement, like freedom of information, like independent media, like avoidance of conflict of interests. Many of these elements together, like a mosaic, form the integrity system of a society.

“Like a human body has an immune system, these many different elements, society has an integrity system. And we have seen that in countries like Ukraine very often there’s a very close cooperation between the rich powerful elite, oligarchs, and government. They do not keep this apart. Therefore there are conflicts of interests, major politicians also have commercial interest. And therefore the people do not trust the government, they don’t trust the companies either.

“In many countries, including Germany and the United States, there is a problem, this political party financing, campaign financing. The government tries to serve their constituency, the big companies like Siemens, Chrysler, Volkswagen, in order to get from them financing for political campaigns, and this is a very dangerous inroad to corruption.

“In many countries public procurement is a vulnerable spot, where a lot of corruption can take place. This is why we are very happy that the Transparency International Ukraine is working with the government, with some others in a transparent way in order to improve public procurement and public bidding. So I guess these examples are enough to give you a sense for our holistic approach. We look at different elements of an integrity system, like the independent judiciary for instance. Like the separation of powers between anti-corruption agencies, the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch. You look at all of these elements together, in order to create an integrity system, which can protect society from corruption.”

Past year Ukraine was on the 142nd place according to CPI and earned 26 points. What should be done to go up in this anti-corruption ranking? What crucial steps are needed from the government and society?

“The most important thing is that Ukraine comes to grips with corruption, because our CPI is a mirror, when we ask thousands of people what they think about Ukraine, what is in China, what is in India, or Germany. And they give their impressions and their experiences, and if for instance in Ukraine licenses can be obtained without bribes, if you can go to a doctor without paying the doctor, if you can go to school without pressure of the teacher to the parents that they should pay them a bribe, and so on.”

“If you can invest in this country here and very quickly you get a favorable environment for investing here, then people we send to Ukraine will say there’s less corruption. And that will be reflected in our index. Cause the index is just the consequence of the reality. And it will take time, even from now, it will take a year until the people we are asking, in New York and in Boston about Ukraine, will say: ‘Oh, Ukraine is very honest.’ But it will take time, so forget about the index. The index is important, but it’s not so important. The most important thing is that the reality changes and that people experience here that there’s an open system of economic and political development. Everyone will be able to say with confidence that they will not be asked for bribes.”

Do you think that the weakest point of Putin’s regime in the RF is that it is corrupted? How can Ukraine take advantage of this fact?

“I think that Russia is suffering a lot from corruption, not only the internal corruption, but also the corruption outside Russia by Russian companies. So, this is why our chapter in Russia has a lot of work, has a lot of challenges, but as I said we are not from Berlin saying this country is corrupt or this country is less corrupt. We empower the civil societies in the countries to do this work, and therefore it’s not up to me to judge other countries. I can only give you my experiences from my work in the last 20 years.”

US Vice President Joe Biden stated that Putin used corruption and bribes to split Europe and for the war in Ukraine? Could you comment on this? To what extent, in your opinion, has Putin been able to make the West more corrupt?

“I cannot say anything. As I told you, we are not like the World Bank which says that you’re not doing well or you’re doing badly, or we are not like the Pope in Rome saying, ‘Do not sin.’ We facilitate that the civil society in the countries fights its corruption. And Joe Biden, he comes from America, where there’s a lot of corruption also. The United States has a legislation, which forbids bribing outside America. This is very good. We didn’t have that before 1999 in Germany, in France, in the UK. We allowed our companies to come here and bribe. We even gave a tax write-off for that. So in many ways some countries are very good and this I would say according to our practice.”