International Conference Corruption in Serbia
Belgrade, September 20th and 21st, 2001
Photo Gallery
 The International Conference Corruption in Serbia took place in Belgrade (at the Sava Center) on 20th and 21st September 2001. The Conference was a final event of the CLDS' project Corruption in Serbia, and it was a gathering of Serbian top political people (from legislative, judicial and executive branches of power), people form the governmental agencies (the Customs Administration, the tax Administration, etc), judges and lawyers, people from the leading NGOs, trade unions, business community, and the local think tanks, media people (both printed and electronic media), etc. As to the international participation, there were representatives of the World Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the US Department of Justice, Economist Intelligence Unit (London), Transparency International, the Crown Agents, Institute for Market economy (Sofia, Bulgaria), etc.
Dr Dragoljub Micunovic, the Speaker of the Federal Parliament, opened the International Conference Corruption in Serbia. He pointed out that the very human nature is corruptive and that the social progress itself will not eradicate the corruption. He gave a brief account on corruption in Serbia in recent history, pointing out to the corruption during the communist (pre-Milosevic) rule in Yugoslavia, based on the Communist Party privileges, as the heritage fully develop by Milosevic and his cronies. His final point was that Serbia today was very corruptive because it was very poor and with no tradition of the rule of law.
The second speaker at the Conference was Mladjan Dinkic, the Governor of the National Bank of Yugoslavia, who gave a brief report about what has been done in the National Bank regarding anti-corruption activities, particularly regarding renewing personal in the Bank. He also emphasized three main sources of corruption in Serbia today: low income and impoverishment of many people in the country, lack of transparency in the public decision making process and inefficient judiciary in fighting the corruption. He found inefficient judiciary as the main stumbling block in fighting corruption.
Serbian Minister of Finance Bozidar Djelic emphasized three current anti-corruption activities of his Ministry and the Serbian Government: 1) establishment of Anti-corruption Council, staffed with prominent NGO people, that will take care of the exsisting laws, rules and regulations, and the rom they create for corruption, 2) establishment of Anti-corruption commission, a inter-ministerial government body that will coordinate activities of various ministries, and 3) preparing a package of anti-corruption legislation (bills) to be submitted to the Parliament in due course. Furthermore Mr. Djelic presented a brand new plan of the Serbian Government to fighting corruption. The action plan is based on five segments, emphasizing building of the new institutional framework, the reform of the public administration, economic reform (reform of the economic policies), fostering development of civil society and development of political environment advantageous for fighting the corruption.
Mr Zoran Ivosevic, judge of the Serbian Supreme Court, gave account on the mechanisms of corruption in Serbian judiciary, describing specific clientelism as the most frequent type of corruption. In exchange for biased verdicts, judges these days receive everything starting with cash up to promotion to the Supreme Court. Judiciary must face the deep integrity crisis it is in these days and find the way out. The occasion for that is a batch of new legislation on judiciary that is about to be passed through Serbian parliament and lustration (removal) of corrupted judges from the courts.
The opening session was followed by the first working one in which the main findings of the study Corruption in Serbia were delivered to the audience. Two basic presentations were on the survey (empirical findings of the study), delivered by Mirjana Vasovic (public opinion survey) and Slobodan Vukovic (private entrepreneurs survey). Vladan Begovic, Head of the Customs Administration, gave an account about corruption in the Customs Administration, providing a few case studies of corruption linked to smuggling. Dragor Hiber commented some of the findings on the corruption in judiciary, emphasizing the latest suggestion regarding Serbia Penal Code. Bozo Stojanovic, Bosko Mijatovic and Boris Begovic gave presentation on sources, mechanism and the consequences of corruption in Serbia, emphasizing extensive government regulation, rent seeking behavior and income distribution.
The first day afternoon session was the one dedicated to the international guests. Michael Zarnowiecki presented the efforts of the World Bank in assisting member countries in fighting corruption, particularly in field of the customs administration. He suggested four main cornerstones of anti-corruption strategy for the Yugoslav Customs Administration. These are: a review of existing procedures and organization of the Administration, restructuring the labor force of the Administration and providing their decent earnings, separation of authorities of the different administrations regarding international trade and, finally, create wide political and public support for fighting corruption.
Peter Sanfey reviewed the activities of the EBRD in anti-corruption efforts of the member countries. There are a few groups of activities. The first one is a corruption research program that includes BEEPS (Business environment and enterprise performance survey), a project implemented in almost all EBRD member countries. Following this activity, there are a few more: stringent procurement policy of the Bank, rigorous protection of the project integrity, improvements on the corporate governance and active dialogue with governments in the Region that can influence government policy. It was emphasized that since FR Yugoslavia became a member of the EBRD, next round of BEEPS research will also encompass FRY.
Brenda Johnson from the US Department of Justice focused her presentation to the legal measures in fighting corruption, particularly these recently used in the US. She emphasized that effectiveness of the criminal prosecution of corruption depends on administrative capacity of the government.
Daniel Pantic, the head of the local chapter of the Transparency International give a brief account about TI activities in general and particularly the activities of the local chapter.
Krassen Stanchev, represented Bulgarian Institute for Market Economy, gave a brief presentation about fighting corruption in Bulgaria, shedding some light particularly on the pitfalls of that strategy.
The second day of the Conference was focused on the anti-corruption strategy; hence Bosko Mijatovic, Bozo Stojanovic, Dragoljub Kavran and Boris Begovic provided review of the main segments of anti-corruption strategy: 1) economic reform based on deregulation, 2) reform of legislation decreasing discretionary right of civil servant (introducing formal procedures), and 3) reform of public administration. The discussion that followed the presentation was mainly focused on corruption in judiciary, pointing out that the one of the follow-ups of the project should be investigation of corruption in judiciary and the strategy of fighting the corruption in that field.
|
