What To Do About Corruption?
Despite EU-inspired reforms, corruption continues in Turkey. Why is this so, and what can be done about it?
Click here for article. Excerpts:
Mustafa Özyürek, a former field auditor and the general accountant and Istanbul deputy for the CHP, thinks that unless the auditing system is reformed, corruption cannot be prevented…. [A]udits in Turkey are performed by the inspection boards of the public institutions, the Higher Inspection Board (YDK), the Presidential Public Inspection Board (DDK) and the Supreme Court of Accounts. “The inspection boards are dysfunctional. Governments are audited by the people that they appoint…. Suppose that inspection has been conducted properly. If, during this inspection, an irregularity is found, the minister decides whether it should be prosecuted or not. For this reason, corrupt practices performed in the current period cannot be identified. Only those performed in the term of the previous government can be found,” he said…
[T]his is further aggravated by the failure of local administrations to abide by principles of transparency…. [W]hile the Public Procurement Authority (KIK) was established upon pressures from the EU, it is not given the authority to manage public tenders, as the government tends to insert the exception that says, “This law is exempt from the provisions of the public procurement law” into every new piece of legislation.
“… Corrupt practices that come to light are only the ones that are discovered accidentally or are due to a disagreement over the sharing of corrupt income among accomplices.”
Public Auditors Association (DENETDE) President Atilay Ergüven sees a lack of resolve by the government as the most important reason for Turkey’s failure to uproot corruption…. “The state and bureaucracy are involved in some part of all corruption cases in Turkey.”
According to the [World Bank’s] 2008 Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) report, Turkey’s percentile rank for the category of freedom of speech and accountability, one of the six key governance indicators used in the research, rose to 41.8 percent, up from 34.0 in 1996. Turkey’s percentile rank in the control of corruption category rose from 57.8 to 59.4 in 2007. The indicator measuring political instability and violence rose to 20.7 last year from 8.7 in 1996. However, the supremacy of the rule of law fell to 53.3 from 55.2 in the same period.
Yeah yeah, let me remind you that (at least) 75[1] of the esteemed members of our parliament are being shielded from the law by the overly broad parliamentary immunity. Many of them will simply run down the clock by staying in parliament at least until the statute of limitations kicks in. Oh, BTW, this includes the present PM who’d be tried for racketeering, forgery, dereliction of duty etc. if he didn’t have parliamentary immunity. I cannot think of a better bunch to pass laws against corruption.
[1] Source : http://www.tumgazeteler.com/?a=2648947
The judiciary is filled with fanatic CHP supporters. These idiots sent the present PM to prison for reading a poem. Thank God for immunity.