Corruption plagues region

Corruption remains endemic throughout much of Central Asia, impeding the region's economic and political development, a recent report by Transparency International (TI), a leading non-governmental organisation fighting corruption worldwide claimed. "Both grand corruption and petty corruption represent severe problems in Central Asia," Miklos Marschall, director of TI's European and Central Asian desk told IRIN from Berlin, noting an apparent isolation of reformists and civil society. "What makes things worse is that the trend is rather downward," Marschall warned, explaining that the situation in the five Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan had shown no signs of improvement. His comments follow the release of TI's global Corruption Perceptions Index for 2004 last month, surveying a total of 146 countries worldwide, with Finland and New Zealand ranked as the least corrupt countries in the world today. The corruption index is a poll of polls, reflecting the perceptions of business people and country analysts, both resident and non-resident. This year's index drew on 18 surveys provided to TI between 2002 and 2004, conducted by 12 independent institutions. Some 106 countries surveyed scored less than five against a clean score of 10, according to TI, with 60 countries scoring less than three out of 10, indicating rampant corruption. "Corruption in large-scale public projects is a daunting obstacle to sustainable development and results in a major loss of public funds needed for education, healthcare and poverty alleviation, both in developed and developing countries," TI chairman Peter Eigen said at the index's launch, adding: "Corruption robs countries of their potential." That scenario is particularly apparent in Central Asia, with all five Central Asian states ranked amongst the 30 most corrupt countries in the world. Turkmenistan ranked the worst at 137, followed by Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. "Uzbekistan is not much better than the others: A score of 2.3 as opposed to 2.2 (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan) does not suggest that the situation is better," Marschall was quick to point out, noting corruption in the region scared away much needed foreign investment. One day earlier, a top World Bank official urged Kyrgyzstan to fight corruption at its heart. "Corruption is the 'single biggest brake for economic and social advancement' in Kyrgyzstan," Shigeo Katsu, the World Bank's vice president for Europe and Central Asia, said at an international donors meeting in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, on Wednesday. According to the Associated Press report, Katsu said fighting corruption and good governance were "important for sustained growth and for delivery of better basic services to the Kyrgyz people." Sergey Zlotnikov, executive director of Transparency Kazakhstan (TK), a local anti-corruption group in Central Asia's largest state, couldn't agree more. "Corruption of course impacts on poverty. The rich become richer and the poor become poorer and the gap between them becomes even greater," Zlotnikov told IRIN from his office in the Kazakh capital, Astana. "The laws don't work or work selectively. For some people they work but not for others and corruption facilitates that," he maintained, describing the Kazakh judicial system as mainly corrupt. Corruption in oil-rich Kazakhstan was systematic, the activist said, adding that the situation had actually worsened. "Kazakhstan is among the countries that have rich raw material resources and some unfair investors get contracts for oil and other raw material production through bribing [officials]. There is a lack of transparency in the extractive industry. All of this complicates the issue," he explained. Asked what needed to be done, Marschall called for greater political will by individual states in undertaking necessary reforms. "Political will for reforms can make the difference," he said, citing recent events in the southern Caucasus state of Georgia. While not particularly optimistic, he believed that the international business community had a responsibility,noting many foreign companies accepted and sometimes even initiated corrupt dealings. According to TI, upwards of US $400 billion is lost due to bribery in government procurement worldwide each year.