Attention: Due to a translation error, an article published on March 22 under the headline “Traffic Police, Kindergartens, Universities Most Corrupt – Watchdog” incorrectly identified the Open Government Partnership (OGP) as the source of a report on corruption in Russia. The report was in fact prepared by a special working group on open government under President Dmitry Medvedev. OGP, a multilateral, non-governmental initiative that aims to promote transparency, empower citizens and strengthen good governance, does not publish reports on corruption and did not author the document referred to in our report. Here is a corrected version of the original story:
Corruption in Russia is most deeply-rooted within traffic police, kindergartens and higher education institutions, a Kremlin report has stated.
A report prepared by a working group on open government headed by the head of the presidential administration, Sergei Ivanov, said that about half of people surveyed who had dealings with traffic police (52 percent) had been asked for a bribe. The situation with kindergartens and universities was no better, with 51 and 46 percent, respectively, of those who dealt with such institutions said they had faced corruption.
Corruption is also rampant within the army – particularly during draft periods – in middle schools and in state medical establishments, the report said.
Officials from almost all spheres are extracting bribes from private companies, the report said. Russia’s economy could have shown six percent year-on-year growth instead of the current four percent if corruption practices were eradicated, the report said.
“In 2011, Russia’s net capital outflow reached 4.5 percent of GDP, the situation continued in 2012 despite the favorable foreign economic environment,” the report said.
Despite Medvedev’s efforts to fight corruption, its level in Russia remains relatively high, with Russia ranking 143rd out of 182 countries in a study published last December by the governance watchdog Transparency International.
