Researchers and university professors were invited to tonight’s weekly polling show ‘Barometer’ with Neritan Sejamini, whose focus was the latest survey, which showed that around 30% of Albanian citizens agree to have given bribes at least once in the last 12 months.
Professor at the Department of Sociology, Julian Bejko, said that corruption in Albania is deeply rooted and dates back to the time of the communist regime when due to a general lack of money, this would be arranged through an exchange of goods and favors.
In addition, he said that low-level corruption in our country involves citizens paying bribes to get what already belongs to them, whereas on higher levels, individuals pay to get something that isn’t theirs to have.
Professor Blerta Bodinaku, gave her take saying that corruption is an ‘indirect way’ to get to what you need and it is part of a submissive mentality when faced with authority.
Corruption is a characteristic and pathological symptom of Albanian society, – said Bodinaku, adding that citizens don’t react because they don’t believe it will have any effect, seeing that they’ve lost all hope on the government, to a point where they’ve become ‘paranoid’ about it.
Economist, Endrit Yzeiri said that Great Britain began reforms to fight corruption since the 1800s, in order to reach today’s level of absolute zero corruption at the low level.
Professor, Blendi Ceka argued that the real level of corruption could be much higher, because when it comes to reporting a crime of this nature, everyone tries to hide it and rarely admits to having given a bribe in the first place. They feel ashamed and don’t want to admit that they got a job or passed a class through bribes.
Researcher, Redi Shehu, said that the perception of corruption is that it is a largely accepted phenomenon.
According to him, this is a pyramidal issue. Small corruption can’t exist at the bottom if corruption doesn’t already exist at the top.
In addition, MRB director, Dimitris Mavros argued that when 30% of people dare to say that they’ve paid bribes, this means that the actual percentage is way higher.
Jouranlist, Lutfi Dervishi said that there can never be a vaccine against corruption and that the problem lies in the fact that regular people think that nothing can ever change and that this is just the way things work.
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