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Transparency International lists Armenia among most corrupted countries

16 November 2016 16:46 (UTC+04:00)
Transparency International lists Armenia among most corrupted countries

By Gunay Hasanova

Corruption has been the defining characteristic of Armenian politicians for decades, while a recent report of Transparency International is a clear proof to this.

Transparency International, the global civil society organization fighting against the corruption, has listed Armenia among the countries having the most severe corruption problems in its latest report on "Global Corruption Barometer" revealed on November 16.

Transparency International researchers surveyed 60,000 people in 42 European and Central Asian countries.

Armenia received bad ratings across all the key corruption questions, suggesting real and serious corruption challenges, which urgently need to be addressed. Armenia is marked by high perceptions of corruption among members of parliament, high bribery rates and a negative social environment for engaging in anti-corruption actions.

According to the data from different charts, 37 percent of Armenian respondents rank the corruption among the three major problems in the country, while 42 percent of respondents consider the parliamentarians as the most corrupt members of the government.

Some 65 percent of Armenians consider that government and authorities don’t take relevant measures against corruption and 24 percent of respondents believe that the bribery is widespread in Armenia.

Despite Sargsyan’s recent public speeches about his desire to get rid of corruption in Armenia, the actions of the president and members of his inner circle have frequently contradicted his anti-corruption rhetoric.

The obvious evidence of Sargsyan regime’s corrupt actions is $45 million spent for the construction of a new training center for tax officials, while $80,000 alone were spent on the purchase of kitchen appliances. The population answered their President with a flash mob with the hashtag “Where’s the money?”, Huffington Post reported earlier.

Moreover, the brother of President Serj Sargsyan, mostly known because of "asking" for 50% of revenue of any business in Armenia, is one of the most honorary members of this corruption circle.

Meanwhile, the dominance of corrupted government, implementing aggressive policy, monopolies and oligarchic structures remain a major obstacle on the way of economic survival of the country.

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Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

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