AS BRITISH ambassador Michael Roberts critized Slovakia once again for corruption, I can’t avoid the feeling that corruption has definitely become the topic no. 1. After all, it is Radičova government that put anti-corruption fight on its flag.
Since Mr. Roberts did speak out at the Transparency International (TI) press conference for the first time, let’s have a look at TI’s measurement of corruption in Slovakia: Corruptions Perceptions Index and its score. Although CPI is not the best way to measure it, so far it is probably the only tool allowing the comparison of corruption development in time and space. Graph below shows the CPI score for Slovakia for the last 10 years.
Note: Higher score means less corruption. Top 3 countries in 2010 scored 9.3
Surprisingly enough, it is Fico government that scored the best in the last decade. Since TI’s methodology uses expert surveys from two or three years preceding the publish year, this does not change anything about the fact that Fico government scored the best…
Now who reads newspaper regularly knows that bribes were never a hotter issue. Experts are saying the situation has never been worse. Ambassadors break the silence. What’s wrong with TI’s then? Is it possible their methodology is wrong? Are the experts in surveys biased? Or is it true that the Fico government actually was the least corrupted since 2010?
None of the above, as far as I believe. In my opinion all the governments have been corruptes about the same. “Friendly commissions” from privatization might have influenced experts to report the Dyurinda government lower score. On the other side, it is the very primitive, coarse and vulgar way of “doing things” what makes us (journalists and their readers) feel and think that Fico (+Meciar+Slota) has gone the furthest in this century.
