View: SLAGANA TASEVA

Citizens and corruption

The corruption is most often defined as an abuse of the public functions (authorities) for achieving personal objectives. This definition is not wide enough to comprise all the possible forms of corruption because, although punishable by law, bribe, offering services, abuses and corruption in the public purchases are not the overall core of this problem. The problem is much deeper and located in the strict non-transparency of the state administration procedures which create opportunities for system abuses by groups which manage it and which put their personal interests over the mutual interests through corruption.

Until recently the corruption was a topic which the organs in charge of its detection and persecution exclusively dealt with, and this phenomenon has so far been observed and treated exclusively from an aspect of its prevention and repression. By the beginning of the ‘90s the corruption, as well as the organized crime were considered to be a problem of the developed countries. The beginning of the transition was a process where the new countries formed by the former socialists block brought all the challenges. The representatives of the nation who started to practice the authorities soon realized the advantages of reforms and the slowness of the economic changes, of privatization, of insufficiently established state-legal basics of the new economic and law system, of responsibilities weakening and the non-existing of efficient control mechanisms and mutual control system. The analyses show that there is one regularity: the faster the reforms are implemented and the faster the market economy system, democracy and legal country are established, the smaller the space for corruption and other negative social phenomena is.

The Republic of Macedonia as a country in transition has faced the corruption problem in the worst way. At the same time the citizens, facing massive unemployment and social poverty have become active or passive co-participants in massive forms of organized criminal and corruption. The tolerance towards, at first sight small forms of corruption, is letting a lump of snow which turned into avalanche and from a single phenomenon it turned into a system which endangered the social order in whole.

Very perilous for the perspectives of any kind of preventive strategy in such conditions is the “reconciliation” with the corruption on behalf of the public as a normal phenomenon, as a “lifestyle”. The research results show that the citizens consider the corruption to be a big problem. They also emphasize the high level of corruption in all institutions which should be civic services, of health care, education, local self-government, customs, police. The citizens evaluate the carriers of the highest functions in the country – the ministers and members of parliament to be the most corrupted. However, in their opinion the most authorized to take actions in preventing the corruption is the Government and small percentage think that the non-governmental sector, that is the citizens themselves could help, too. These citizens’ attitudes are correct because the bearers of the power are the ones who should contribute to the law rule, but in conditions when bad management, nepotism, conism, bribe, and even the higher forms of corruption have become everyday life, the silence of the citizens is to advantage to those which have profit from this situation.

In this situation it is encouraging that in the past several months of the last and the beginning of this year it has become apparent that the level of toleration of the international and domestic public towards corruption as an endemic phenomenon for the Republic of Macedonia, has become overcome. The external pressures for creating a quality legal and institutional frame for fight against corruption have enforced and at the same time the organizing of the non-governmental sector has enforced, too. The citizens’ and other members of the civic sector have raised their awareness for the need for taking concrete activities which will make the Government and the other bearers of the power to stop and start taking care of the citizens’ needs for a better life in a household, democratic country where the law rules. Since October 2001 at the territory of the country there is a national branch of Transparency International – Transparency Macedonia. Although a short time, the existence of the Transparency Macedonia has caused strengthening the citizens’ awareness of the high level of corruption. Also, slowly but surely, they have become aware that they are the ones who, if organized and constantly acting at all the levels, can make the bearers of the power behave transparently and responsible in carrying out their functions and take all the necessary steps in establishing control and regulation mechanisms of corruption. As a result, on 22 April this year, the coalition “Macedonia without corruption” was formed, where large number of non-governmental organizations take part. According to the Charter and the Action plan adopted at the inaugural meeting, the Coalition is to become a civic anti-corruption movement, which, taking into consideration the complexity of this phenomenon, is going to act in all four areas: legislation, “law enforcement”, public opinion and public action. This practice is not new. The experiences of the countries which have already taken some serious measures of decreasing the level of corruption display that the simultaneous acting of all four factors: politics, country, citizens and media is necessary. However, the citizens have the key role in it and they should impel and also accept, implement and monitor the overall activities. No complicated recipes nor recommendations are necessary. Most often the simplest way of expressing and acting can be reached much more than any other complicated program. Let’s start with arranging our own garden – the environment where we live and work, so be it the non-governmental sector.