Alexdockg’s Weblog

On Page 6 the report states:

“Yet the proper functioning of administrative structures is hampered by low funding, corruption and the subversion of formal institutions by informal patronage networks at all levels of government, from the national level down to the local self-government layer of administration. In general terms, awareness among civil servants of the importance of good governance has been raised by a public debate over corruption. Administrations work more effectively in some areas than in others, some institutions are less corrupt than others, and some territories are better governed than others.”

Some short comments are in order:

First, it has been always clear to any observer of Kyrgyz Politics, that corruption is massively present in almost every state administration, starting with the ministry for emergency situations (МЧС) and ending in the National Agency of the Kyrgyz Republic for the Prevention of Corruption. When I interviewed one of the officials in this agency in Spring 2007 he explained, that of 25 investigations, conducted by the agency, only few of them actually were handed over to the Genprokuratura and only in one case proceedings were instituted.

I have to admit, that in the last time, the fight against corruption gained momentum. However, headlines like “Начальник отдела Управления ГКНС подозревается в вымогательстве взятки” (http://kg.akipress.org/news/54383) are only proof of a new tendency to put more effort into the simulation of reform and state action. In fact, not one of the guys, recently mentioned in the list of the hundred richest people in Kyrgyzstan in the newspaper De-Fakto have been brought before court. Former state ministers like Bakirdin Subanbekov (served as minister of interior under Akaev from 2002 - 2005) or Zhanysh Rustenbekov (former minister for emergency situations, today ambassador to the Republic of Kazakhstan) could be questioned. How actually did they manage to get included in the mentioned list, when they spend all their years of profession as state officials in numerous state agencies?

Summarizing this discussion up, i want to make the conclusion, that the awareness among civil servants of the importance of good governance has not been raised by the public debate. It just led to a reformulation of strategies of manipulation to deceive the public; certainly it leads not to attempts to engage into a “real” fight against corruption (and how would that b e possible taking into consideration the structure of the political system. It is build upon rent-seeking mechanisms and corruption is its main income generator).

A last comment is necessary regarding the sentence about differences in the performance of different state agencies. My question to the author(s) is: could you give us examples? And if you can, could you give us please some references? It would be interesting to find out, which territory actually is better governed than others (or worse). And if one is able to clearly mark differences in the performance of different administrations it would be great to find out more about the reasons for such differences. Perhaps the BTI Report 2010 will provide us with some answers to these questions!