Reporter's Notebook Comments

• After reading of this piece of text a number of times, I still feel uneasy. Several concrete cases of fraud, abuse and corruption are described (with probably more detail than necessary) in the customs office (allowing 20-year old meat to be imported), Tax Directorate (often blamed for their reluctance to reform themselves and increase their effectiveness in courts), the State Reserve Agency, and some others. Are these the most typical facts of corruption that may reveal the true situation? I believe, indeed, that the purpose of the Reporter's essay is not to reveal the whole picture of Bulgarian corruption problems. It might not cover even the main cases within a certain period of time, it may not even list these important cases, which would require many more pages. What is expected appears to be to provide a sense of the human impact of corruption, to provide a sense of the problem's complexity and to provide a source to assess the popular mood concerning fraudulent practices.
  
  My overall impression is that the submitted text fails to accomplish this goal. Corruption and fraud exists, there is no doubt about it, but the problem is the popular mentality, which accepts much of it as an easier way to make things move. This was correctly pointed out recently by the U.S. Ambassador in Sofia. There is a mixture of Balkan-Oriental attitudes, some inherited from the Ottoman period, and some residue from the Socialist regime, when small bribes were common and accepted by people as a price to fix their problems. This makes most measures against corruption and nepotism to be greatly ineffective and even to be ridiculed, as it happened with the adapted movies used to train administration on how to resist corruption. Moreover, it is still very problematic to explain to various officials what "conflict of interest" means and why it should be avoided. Still, most officials are relatively poor, by normal standards, and they see their positions as a primary source for enrichment of themselves and their families. A recent example tells a lot about the prevailing mentality. It was revealed by the National Audit Office (which collects income and property reports of public officials, but does not have the authority to punish irregularities), that the chairman of the committee for investigating assets, acquired through criminal activity has fixed or himself a monthly salary of 7,000 BGLev (about US$5,000), an amount quite high for Bulgarian standards, more than the total of the salaries of the country's president, prime minister, and parliamentary speaker. Asked by journalists, this official denied any intention to return this money. Even more important, there is no legal provision that forces him to do this.
  
  
• The cases described in the Reporter's Notebook have been accompanied or followed by many other scandals related to corruption.
  
  On the one hand:
  • Citizens accept corruption with resignation, apathy and indifference. Partly this apathy is based on the general high mistrust in the political institutions and courts: 75 percent mistrust in the parliament; 66 percent in the government; 73 percent in the court; 84 percent in the political parties. (Eurobarometer 2006)
    
    
  • The reactions of the audience (if there is one) shows a lack of understanding and knowledge among politicians, citizens and journalists about the basic ethical standards and norms that are supposed to drive our policy-making process, social life, relationships and attitudes.
    
    
  For example, in June, under the Savoy affair, Italian Victor Emmanuelle stated that the ex-Prime Minister Simeon Koburgotski and ministries of his cabinet had used an Italian businessman's (Cheroni) private plane and had taken advantage of his hospitality, accepting payments for expensive hotel accommodations. As our ex-prime minister said during the press-conference, "the's no crime, news or sensation if any businessman/owner of a plane, helped a minister fly." We encountered the same thinking in July when a Bulgarian lobbying disclosure bill was discussed. In interviews, this practice was presented as a positive step toward anti-corruption patterns. There weren't any reactions or critics from the journalists and NGOs.
  
  On the other side:
  
  The efforts of the government and public prosecution are visible and some of them have been effective during the last few months.
  • Under European requirements, many legislative acts were amended or adopted. The new regulations are aimed at broadening the accountability and responsibility of our politicians, civil servants, transparency of party finance and election campaigns. Thirty cases of money laundering have been sent to the court and many investigations into the staff of Sofia and other big cities' prosecutions took place. Several prosecutors were dismissed during the last several months. Thousands of civil servants were and will be trained in anti-corruption and ethics under the programs of the Ministry of the State Administration. A program to introduce e-government is a priority of the Ministry. The newly elected prosecutor general, as well as the institution, plays an active key role in anti-corruption activities and measures. Citizens' trust in this institution and in Velchev has increased in the past several months.
    
    
  It's necessary to:
  
  Educate citizens, policy-makers and journalists on anti-corruption;
  
  Create new culture and attitudes toward corruption and accept effective clear ethical standards and rules. The real results of the fight againscorruption will be the building of trust in the responsible institutions and active citizen support of anti-corruption measures.
  
  
• The description of events is accurate. After the author finished writing, there was an extremely important corruption scandal. The head of the state-run Central Heating of Sofia company was caught having foreign bank accounts with millions of euro. The investigation of this case is still underway, but it seems that this is an instance of grand corruption.
  
  
• After reading this depiction of everyday occurrences of corrupt practices in Bulgaria, one may feel the urge to throw up their hands in disbelief that the system can ever right itself. However, in some ways, this is clear proof of how difficult it is in practice to implement laws within a political system that has as a political culture that features patron-client relations. Corrupt political practices may become a way of life within a political system where either state structures or institutions are unable to provide necessary services, or the bureaucracy becomes a vehicle for repaying loyalty to a political party or individual possessing political power. These types of practices simply do not change as laws or regulations change, since they are embedded within the political culture of a country, framing how people perceive their system and, more importantly, how they act. Purposeful attempts have to be made by the political leadership of the country to resocialize and convince the next generation that they need not be tolerant of corruption, and that they can replace patron-clientelism with meritocracy.
  
  
• Regarding the Red Cross scandal: Hristo Grigorov kept his post because no sufficient evidence against him was found. The investigation is still ongoing but it seems that the problem is not with the Red Cross itself, but rather with other organizations who were receiving aid through the Red Cross without accounting controls.
  
  It should be noted that several hotlines for corruption reports were established at the Ministry of Interior, the Tax Administration and anti-corruption commissions.