Transparency
International ("TI") has published its regional Corruption Barometer for Europe
and Central Asia ("Report") on 16 November
2016.

According
to the findings of the Report[1],
one third of the citizens of the region perceive corruption as one of the
biggest three challenges facing their country. More than half of the people do
not think their government is doing a good job combating corruption in the
public sector. Indeed, nearly one in three of the participants believe their
government officials, elected and appointed, are mostly or entirely corrupt. As
for the private sector, 26% think that business executives are highly corrupt.
The Report further finds that in the last year 1 in 6 households have paid
bribes to access public services.

The
Report suggests that 22% believes corruption or bribery is one of the three
biggest problems in Turkey. This was selected among issues such as economy,
unemployment, crime, immigration, health and education. Further, 40% in Turkey
believe most or all members of the parliament are corrupt. 42% in Turkey think
that government's actions to fight corruption are very bad or fairly bad. In European
Union accession countries (including Turkey), just under 1 in 5 had to pay
bribes when in contact with the police and civil courts.

The
report suggests that according to the respondents, the most effective actions
one can take to help combat bribery are "reporting corruption incidents" (18%) and
"refusing to pay bribes" (20%). An overwhelming 27% believe that there is
nothing ordinary people can do to fight corruption. The Report also notes that
such actions are rarely taken by the population. Research finds only 19% of
those who said they paid bribes in last year actually reported it. This is
mostly because 30% fear retaliation if they report corruption (2 in 5 actually
suffer retaliation when corruption is reported), 14% believe that corruption is
too difficult to prove and 12% think that nothing will be done even if they
report corruption.

In
2014, TÜSİAD (a Turkish private sector NGO titled "Turkish Industry and
Business Association") had conducted a survey within the Turkish private sector
called "Corruption from Business Perspective: Perception and Policy
Recommendations"[2].
The related findings of the survey indicated that Turkish business world view
corruption as a problem with medium significance, preceded by problems such as
high taxes, labor costs and unrecorded economy. Nevertheless, the survey indicated
that 37% of the participants believe that corruption is frequent and on a large
scale. Further, 46% of the participants believe that corruption will increase.  The survey found that, of the people who do
not think they would report corruption believe they would not because there is
no legal reporting mechanism (30%), reporting would not bear any results (12%)
and they fear their identities would be exposed (6%).

From
a Turkish point of view, both the Report and the survey when reviewed together,
provide perspective into corruption perceptions and how to fight corruption. On
the matter of how to eradicate corruption, one of the measures suggested by the
Report is increasing whistleblower protection through legislation. The TÜSİAD
survey on the other hand, recommends collective actions as a way of fighting
corruption. Both very valuable recommendations, TÜSİAD's policy recommendation
is more targeted towards prevention, while TI's recommendation is regarding
misconduct occurring after corruption, which in the long run is also aimed
towards prevention.

Authors: Gönenç Gürkaynak, Esq., Ç. Olgu Kama and Burcu Ergün,
ELIG, Attorneys-at-Law

First published in
Mondaq on November 22, 2016.

[1]https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/governments_are_doing_a_poor_job_at_fighting_corruption_across_europe

[2]The survey, led by
Gönenç Gürkaynak, the Managing Partner of ELIG, Attorneys-at-Law, was conducted
in Istanbul over a sample of 801 respondents, representative of the business
community. A total of 80 representatives from the construction sector, 144
representatives from the wholesale and retail sector, 134 representatives from
the accommodation sector, 80 representatives from transportation and
communication sector, 186 representatives from the manufacturing sector and 177
representatives from other service sectors participated in the survey. The
survey was based on nine in depth interviews in Istanbul and three focus group
meetings in Denizli, Gaziantep and Antalya, the opinions of 36 business people
in total were taken into consideration.