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.