The perception of the majority of people around the world, including Croats, is that governments are not successful in the fight against corruption and that corruption has become worse over the past two years, a Transparency International survey shows.
Most Croatian citizens, 47%, believe that the government is not successful in suppressing corruption while 19% think that the government and public authorities are successful in this regard, the results of the 2013 Global Corruption Barometer indicate.
According to 21% of Croatian citizens, the level of corruption has increased over the past two years while 51% believe that it has stayed the same and 72% of the people in Croatia thought that political parties were affected by corruption, followed by the judiciary and public servants.
On a scale of 1 (without corruption) to 5 (completely corrupt), Croatian political parties and the judiciary were given a score of 4.0, public servants scored 3.9 and health workers 3.8, while citizens believe that the lowest level of corruption exists in religious organisations and non-governmental organisations 2.8.
The Global Corruption Barometer 2013 is a survey of 114,000 people in 107 countries and it shows that corruption is widespread. 27 per cent of respondents have paid a bribe when accessing public services and institutions in the last 12 months, revealing no improvement from previous surveys.
Still, nearly 9 out of 10 people surveyed said they would act against corruption and two-thirds of those who were asked to pay a bribe had refused, suggesting that governments, civil society and the business sector need to do more to engage people in thwarting corruption.
"Politicians themselves have much to do to regain trust. The Global Corruption Barometer 2013 shows a crisis of trust in politics and real concern about the capacity of those institutions responsible for bringing criminals to justice", the report says.
