CORRUPTION PERCEPTION INDEX
Romania’s Situation in 2016

Today, Transparency International is launching the annual report regarding the global Corruption Perception Index (CPI), which allows to establish a top of the degree of corruption in the public sector, as it is perceived by the business leaders and independent experts in the 176 countries analysed.

The top results from the points scored, on a 0 to 100 scale, where 0 means „very corrupt” and 100 means „corruption free”. Three to 16 different sources are taken into consideration for each country, and the methods used are reviewed by Transparency International, to ensure they meet the quality standards of TI.

In 2016, the first place goes to Denmark and New Zealand, with 90 points each, followed by Finland (89 points), Sweden (88 points) and Norway (87 points). In the European Union, other countries that scored over 80 points are the Netherlands (83 points), Germany, Luxemburg and the United Kingdom, with 81 points each.

Romania ranks 24-25th among the 28 EU member states, on a par with Hungary, but ahead of Italy, Greece and Bulgaria

Romania, due to the 48 points scored, ranks 57th in the world and 24th-25th in the European Union, on a par with Hungary. The only EU member states scoring less points are Italy (47), Greece (44) and Bulgaria (41). The score obtained by Romania resulted from 10 independent sources that provided data regarding the perception of corruption in the public sector. The rank Romania is placed on at international and European level, as well as any point earned should be analized in a boader context, including in light of the CPI results globally, which in a general view are downfalling - while years ago the highes scores reached up to 98 points, this year the highest score is 90 points.

An objective analysis on how the perception of corruption in the public sector varied in Romania from 1997, when Romania was introduced in the global CPI till now reveals that the country took important steps toward integrity. Even though the evolution of the CPI was not liniar, the score gained 18 points from 1997 till now. This CPI improvement is the result of the anticorruption efforts of the public institutions – preventive, combating or sanctioning ones, as well as civil society`s ones, who has substantially contributed to their allignement to the international standards. In this context, Transparency International Romania has in several ocasions contributed to finding the most appropriate policy solutions to keep the anticorruption commitment meaningful as well as to ground these solutions into the Romanian society needs. Improving the CPI score is one of the objectives of the National Anticorruption Strategy itself. However, for this objective to be considered achieved, the current upward trend needs to proove sustainable and not just a temporary improvement, generated by isolated anticorruption actions.

“Romania’s coming to maturity requires time, obviously. Therefore, it is important to focus on corruption prevention measures, in order to maintain the ascending tendency of the CPI and, implicitly, to improve the integrity within the public sector. Equally important is that the measures adopted by the public institutions are adequately explained and assumed by the decison makers”, says Marian Popa, President of Transparency International Romania.

"In this respect, Transparency International Romania recommends to speed up the application of the corruption prevention measures, to give up the formal approach to corruption prevention, and to increase the accountability of the decison makers, at both central and local levels. Only a continuous and sustained effort can demonstrate that the CPI improvement is not reverisble, but a natural consequence of assuming and internalizing the attitude and methality change at societal level.

„What exactly has Romania to do? It has to standardise the internal administrative procedures and to clearly define individual responsabilities for each and every participant in a procedure, to correctly and unequivocally define the rules governing the management of public affairs, and to change its approach, favouring the prevention of errors instead of sanctioning those who commited errors. This would lead to a better management of public resources and a cleaner administration”, says Victor Alistar, Director TI-Romania.

In order to achieve this, we remind some of the solutions identified by Transparency International Romania and put forward in the National Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2016 – 2020:

• a realistic analysis of the risks and vulnerabilities to corruption, accompanied by measures to remedy them
• the approval and implementation of the integrity and periodic self-assessment plan by each central and local public institution, including the entities subordinate or coordinated by them
• the development and implementation of programs meant to improve the understanding of the integrity standards by the employees of the public institutions, on the one hand, and by the citizens, beneficiaries of the public services, on the other hand
• digitalisation of the public administration, including integrated data bases, as well as a considerable improvement of the transparency, by means of providing public information as open data
• a priority for the Parliament should be to pass the Administrative Code, finished by the Government, and the Goverment should draw up and submit to the Parliament, for adoption, the Administrative Procedure Code

Consistent with its commitment to support the efforts meant to increase public integrity, Transparency International Romania invites public institutions, decion makers and citizens to a joint anticorruption effort. Only such an efort can reflect de facto the exercice of the national soveraignity, the rule of law and democracy.

Through enforcement of concrete measures, consistency, civic spyrit, dialog, responsibility and accounabiliry of each and every one of us we can hope for a realy change of menthality ans aspire to a hones Romania, free of corruption!, makes all its experience and expertise available to the public institutions, in order to maintain the upward trend recorded during 2012-2016. At the same time, Transparency International Romania invites the decison makers and the citizens to support the efforts made to prevent corruption in the public sector, so that we may together contribute to a better integrity at national level.

For more information, please contact:
Victor Alistar, Director Transparency International Romania
tel: 031 6606 001
e-mail: victor.alistar@transparency.org.ro