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Romania and the vicious circle of corruption- causes and solutions

Nowadays corruption is one of the greatest factors hindering development and stifling the
realisation of democracy. It is widely accepted by economists, development practitioners and
policy makers that corruption is a problem of developing countries. Romania is widely regarded
as one of the most corrupt country in the European Union, as revealed by the annual Corruption
Perceptions Index conducted by Transparency International. Corruption was cited among many
issues that provoked the 201214 social unrest.
The image of Romania was badly affected by the 2012 political crisis, when the European
Commission expressed concerns about the rule of law, pointing to the power struggle between
Prime Minister Victor Ponta and President Traian Bsescu. The Commission also criticised
Romania for failing to root out corruption and political influence in its state institutions. One
year later, in December, the Chamber of Deputies passed, without parliamentary debate, several
controversial amendments to the Penal Code, according to that the country's President, senators,
members of the lower chamber, as well as lawyers, are no longer to be considered "public
officials". This in turn means they can no longer be held to account for abuse of
office, bribery, conflicts of interest and other corruption crimes. The amendments were sharply
criticised by Romanian opposition parties and European leaders, while the Constitutional Court
of Romania cataloged this move as unconstitutional.

Corruption affects the growth of a nation adversely. It reduces the Governments income, and
creates inequalities in distribution of income and wealth. Corruption affects a nations
development, economically, socially and politically. Corruption may come in many forms, often
in politics and sport. Politicians on a quite regular basis have been found guilty of corruption, as
with sports persons. Politicians use unethical techniques to gain an advantage in an election, to
gain more money, votes or to acquire ungotten wealth..The causes of corruption are various and
complex: personal, cultural, institutional, organizational and they are applicable, on a greater or
lesser scale, to different cultural and geographical environments.
The most visible form of corruption is that of abuse of public office by public officials,
allocating public funds in often accompanied by bribe in order to obtain contracts. Moreover
other significant deficiencies are : the recourses are assessed as insufficient and that means that a
priori we have to deal with abnormal functioning of Public sector institutions. Also the lack of

independence of the public sector and the constant political intervention cancels the efforts for a
more transparent public Sector. In these faults must be added the deficiencies that economic
crisis and austerity measures caused such as the reduction of the salaries in the public sector from
25% to 50%, generating inequality, poverty, lack of professionalism lessening of productivity
and weakling work ethics.
Another problem is that although from 2004 public servants must not have political affiliation
still the political interference is constant and perfects are changing after the government change .

Corruption can be divided into three levels, all interwoven with the way the state functions.
While elite level corruption attracts the most press and political attention, the remaining two are
more insidious. Elite corruption most commonly involves privatization and land deals, with
bribes taken from companies to secure contracts within the realm of the politician concerned.
Most Romanians experience of corruption involves paying people in order to get simple things
done. If a relative is in hospital, for example, one can expect to pay the staff informally in order
for the relative to receive the care and attention they need. This low-level corruption raises public
employees wages to a liveable level. Thus for those at the bottom, a cycle of paying and taking
bribes persists out of necessity.
Almost all public institutions are politicized, with senior appointments often made on the basis of
political loyalty. For example, the Interior Ministry appoints the heads of the National Archives
and other academic and cultural institutions. The Ponta government immediately replaced all of
these with party loyalists. Combined with the absence of transparency in public institutions, such
mid-level corruption creates the perception that to get a job or a contract, one must have contacts,
which stem from corrupt patronage relationships and party loyalty. For young Romanians, then,
the choice is either to accept the system or to leave. The belief that there is no future without
connections is one of the main motivations for migrating abroad.

But prevention and eradication of corruption is an absolute requirement for better social and
public life. This corruption takes an interesting turn in such a way that everyone becomes
corrupt in some other sort if situation permits.
One solution would be to give better salary in governmental jobs: many employees
in government positions receive low salary like clerks, office staff etc. Hence they expect to
make money by bribery. For this they try to delay the work for so long that the client is fed up
and opts for bribery for progress in the work.

Another remedy would be to increase the number of workers: in many offices of


the government sector,the
work
load
has
gone
up drastically but
the recruitment of vacancies has declined. This gives an option for delaying the work by officials
and expect monetary or other benefits for faster completion.
3. Law to dismiss from service if found to be involved in corruption. This seems a
better option. For instance if you see cases where anti-corruption bureau rides an officers home
and finds disproportionate assets, the officer is suspended from employment and taken for
judicial trials. But after couple of years you will find them in employment at same or even better
positions. So this creates no fear among the officials against corruption.
4. Keep transactions online and provide bill for every purchase: Many of them do not pay
taxes and escape This involves corruption. Making payments online through bank accounts and
provision of bills for every transaction involving money. This is a better corruption watch.
5. Camera in most governmental offices: In every ATM there are camera to keep a watch on
the public taking their money. Then why not government offices have cameras to have a watch
on the employ performance. Even there are many employs who openly take bribe in presence of
common men. This public bribery is due to confidence that public wants their work more than
the amount they are paying to them as bribes.
6. Speed up the work process in governmental institutes: Most corporate offices are in
full fledged running by 8- 9 am but the government offices start by 10 to 11 am and wind up by
3.30 to 4 pm with a lunch break of 1& half hour in between. This indicates how much of
commitment lies in the work and how fast the work goes on. If there are mistakes in the work or
delay in the work, civilians have to run behind those workers to rectify or complete the work.
This makes the chances of corruption more or else work is not done or problem rectified.
7. Make Media responsible and fix laws to be so: There are many major scams
and corruption events involving media. Though the media is well aware of
the corruption happening they stay silent due to their support for some political parties or else
their owners get some monetary benefits from the rulers. Even there are many reporters who
though come across some scam or corruption, they stay silent without revealing it for press for
having received monetary benefits to do so. If media personnel are found to be guilty for not
having exposed the scam or corruption intentionally, they have to be prosecuted and their licence
be withdrawn.
8. Verify the selection procedures: Many people compete for government jobs and in the
process there are corruption happening in the selection of candidates for the posts. So let the
selection criteria and procedure used be transparent and any misconduct from this should be
punishable.

9. Keep inflation low: This is another factor for keeping corruption high and also persistent.
Due to rise in prices, any amount of income seems to be insufficient. This inflation is a
corruption involving politicians and businessmen. Businessmen try to rise the prices to sell their
inventory or stock of goods at higher price. For this the politicians support them and are paid
monetary or other benefits. This is a cheap business tactic but even the so called richest business
magnets play this corruption game.
10. Speed up the judgment and increase the courts: Many cases of corruption take years to be
given verdict. This delay in cases creates lack of fear for being corrupt and also huge time span
for court trials gives sufficient time to make alterations in the witness.

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