Bribery in Russia

[Larry1]

You might be interested in this Washington Post article on bribery in Russia:

TIMONINO, Russia — From his tiny shop on a highway 20 miles southeast of Moscow, Valery Tsaturov listens to daily reports of a national fight against corruption with a mixture of anger and skepticism.

The headline-grabbing charges of high-level official misconduct began a few weeks ago, and President Vladimir Putin recently said that the battle would certainly extend to the everyday bribes that average people pay to keep their lives running smoothly. The news, Tsaturov said, has not reached the traffic police officers and health inspectors who prey on him in this society permeated with corruption.

“Nothing is changing,” he said. “And all of them who are stealing from us ordinary people will get away with this.”

Russians consistently cite corruption as one of their nation’s worst problems, so they might have been heartened at the investigations of Defense Ministry executives accused of siphoning off $215 million in property scams, agriculture officials blamed for defrauding the government of $1.3 billion, reports that $200 million has gone missing from the space industry, and more.

But like Tsaturov, many have been watching with some detachment, unsure what set off all the commotion but sadly confident that a settling of scores is taking place high above their heads, that a few mid-level people will take the fall, that none of the well-connected will end up behind bars, and that life will go on pretty much as usual.

Small-time bribery

The countryside is dotted with shops like Tsaturov’s blue-painted frame store, emblazoned with the words “Fresh Meat.” It’s so small and so stuffed with tea, coffee, candy, canned tomatoes, cigarettes, beer, bay leaves, kvass (the fermented black-bread drink), dried fish and other last-minute must-haves that only one customer can squeeze in at a time.

The meat — better step back as his dainty wife, Lyudmila, raises her axe and whacks it into bone-splintered pieces — attracts bribe-seekers like packs of hungry hyenas. Salivating traffic police officers stop Tsaturov as he drives his loaded car from the meat factory, he said, asking for $30 to let him pass their post. Health inspectors hover over the counter like flies, demanding $500 a month to keep the store open and the meat certified.

Small-time bribery has been entrenched since czarist times, a way to pay bureaucrats when the state felt too poor to do so. Tsaturov said his modest operation barely feeds his family, but that makes no difference. He is expected to pay, in the same way that a more-profitable operation nearby does — making illegal alcohol they call Scotch. “It’s an affront to Scotland,” Tsaturov said.

His complaints to police were ignored, Tsaturov said. “They tell me, ‘Is it such a big deal to give the traffic police 1,000 rubles?’ ” Once, when he persisted, they grew angry and began threatening to open a slander case against him if he didn’t shut up, he said.

“I live in fear,” Tsaturov said. “I don’t know what might happen to me or my family.”

A poll by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center found that citizens were widely aware of the latest investigations but divided about the motivation, with 45 percent saying that the reason was an internal fight at the top and an equal number deciding that Putin was following through on campaign promises to fight corruption.

Tsaturov contends that it is impossible for Putin to fight corruption because government is based on loyalty, which is rewarded by enrichment opportunities. If high-level officials are prosecuted, they and their allies would turn on the president, and the whole system would be in danger of collapsing.

Pervasive problem

The Indem Foundation, a think tank that prepared a report last year for the Ministry of Economic Development, found that bribes are most often paid to the traffic police (about $800 million a year) and by parents applying for child care or kindergarten spots. But the greatest volume goes to the health-care system — about $1.2 billion a year in small payments.

Vladimir Rimsky, an Indem sociologist who worked on the report, said such pervasive bribery is having a pernicious effect. For instance, students pay bribes to clear an exam or win a diploma. Two university professors in Moscow were recently accused of guaranteeing that a graduate student would successfully defend his thesis and get his degree for a payment of $40,000.

Russia has a high traffic fatality rate, with about 28,000 traffic deaths last year among a population of about 142 million. The United States, with 311 million people, had about 32,300 fatalities.

Officials blame poor-quality driving schools, instead of investigating reports that the vast majority of drivers have to pay bribes to get their license, offering little incentive to learn how to drive.

“The traffic agency is not an organization of road police,” Rimsky said. “It’s a service with privileges to get bribes from drivers.”

Russians know a bribe is the price for fast paperwork at the passport office, the best treatment at the doctor’s office, quick repairs from the building superintendent. Of course, they try to avoid paying when they can.

On one vacation, Alla Tkach, a bookstore manager in the city of Izhevsk, drove hundreds of miles to a modest resort on Russia’s Black Sea coast and was forced to pay $200 in bribes to the traffic police along the way. This year, she gave up, taking a $300 charter flight to Barcelona instead. Spain, she said, was fabulous.

Tsaturov, 60, and his wife built their house themselves in the hamlet of Timonino, a short walk from their store. The warm and hospitable Tsaturov refuses to allow a visitor to leave without lunch. With his wife at work, he washes his hands and holds them, dripping, in the air, sure he has seen a towel somewhere, before beginning to grill skewers of meat. He had bought glasses for the occasion, which he ceremoniously removed from their box and filled with kvass.

“I wish one day Russia could become a democracy,” Tsaturov said, imagining a country that listened to its citizens and took corruption seriously. “If only we could see such happiness.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russians-still-forced-to-pay-bribes-despite-corruption-fight/2012/12/20/f422ec8c-4384-11e2-9648-a2c323a991d6_story.html

[GQBlues]

Yeah, well, isn't this part of 'What makes Russia Interesting?" Ask Mendy...

Anyway, bribery, in one form or another, is prevalent in all cultures. Very likely even the author of that article is bribed in some way or another. I know at times I fall victim to such 'arrangements'.

For example, a week ago I played in a golf tournament and actually got myself in a playoff, which meant I had one more day to continue to play. Unfortunately, my lovely wife and I had plans that day. So what did I do to accommodate that situation?...by golly I bribed my wife and told her she can take advantage of the crazy sale going on at White House Black Market (new arrival or some sort) while I was gone, then promised to return ASAP so we can still somewhat do what we originally planned.

I'm just a pretty corrupt kind'a guy, you know what I mean?

It happens everywhere, man.

Besides, think about this for a minute...if Tsaturov and his wife would just decide to become vegetarians, it'd appear 90% of their problems/complaints would all but disappear, no?

[Misha]

And, if you do not cave in to the demands, then you risk going to a Russian jail...

More than 100,000 Russian business people are now either in prison or have been subject to criminal proceedings, according to Boris Titov, Russia’s official ombudsman for the defence of the rights of entrepreneurs. He maintains that the majority are innocent.

Russia has reached this disastrous state because of Moscow’s abuse of criminal law statutes, specifically provisions covering economic crime. Law enforcement authorities use these statutes, many still based on Soviet law, essentially to criminalize regular business activity, otherwise permitted under Russian civil law.Releasing them, and improving Russia’s overall business climate, remains critical as the Russian economy continues stumbling along with low growth and falling revenues.
So Russian criminal investigators, tax inspectors, prosecutors and other oversight bodies, often at the behest of criminal groups, have used these broad laws to intimidate, and blatantly steal from Russia’s fledgling small business community.
Titov regularly highlights these miscarriages of justice. He recently travelled to Rostov-on-Don, for example, and singled out an entrepreneur who had been detained without trial for five years based on charges of fraud (Article 159), the most abused provision within the Russian criminal code.
Titov broached the possibility of an amnesty about a year ago, to bring attention to the plight of Russia’s small business sector. He hoped that releasing thousands of Russian entrepreneurs might also spark economic growth.
President Vladimir Putin initially responded coolly to the proposal. But he then publicly urged the Duma to pass an amnesty, if narrower than Titov envisioned.
The Duma subsequently reduced the number of criminal code provisions subject to the amnesty from 53 to 27, in part to ensure that Putin’s most prominent critics, including Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Alexei Navalny, would not fall under any official pardon.
Fraud, the most misused criminal statute, was only partially included in the list of crimes subject to the amnesty. The draft legislation also included the demand that before one could be released, the accused had to make the victim whole and pay any outstanding expenses or damages.
As a result, Titov’s blanket amnesty has been watered down to a conditional release, and it remains unclear who is, or is not, covered. What happens to those convicted on multiple counts, one commentator asked, when only some are covered by the amnesty?
In addition, the requirement to compensate victims for any alleged losses essentially means that all entrepreneurs must concede their guilt before they can be released. Such an admission runs counter to the primary justification for the amnesty, that charges were fabricated in an overwhelming number of cases.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/european-business/how-russia-puts-business-behind-bars/article13042375/

[Shadow]

I bet a US health inspector would close down the shop, costing him $100k of renovation to re-open.
If he can pass inspection, no need for bribes. If he can not, it is economy between waht he would need to invest and what he pays the health inspector.