How is it with corruption in Estonia? In regard to the past six years, Prof Jüri Saar writes the following in the latest Human Development Report: “When it comes to corruption perception levels, Estonia has not been closing in on the positive standards of Western European nations”. At the same time, Estonian corruption perception is the sharpest in Eastern Europe, to say nothing of former Soviet Republics.
On the one hand, we might congratulate ourselves for the goodness and virtue of recent years. On the other hand, the forward march has stopped, and we have not become more like the world leaders, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway.
Corruption can never be totally cleansed from the planet – nor from any single country. However, states clearly differ in their corruption levels. With New Zealand being the leading country in relation to corruption perception, Russia 143rd and Estonia 29th, we naturally have to ask: why? Cynically speaking, do Russians just complain too much? Maybe their journalists are overly hysterical towards corruption? And do New Zealand and Denmark just have a different level of media coverage for corruption complaints than Estonia?
Calming down, we’d better say that on the international scale, Estonia is quite a good society, especially considering its former Red Yoke comrades. Including in regard to corruption. The problem, however, is a lack of continuing progress.
Some years back a study found that Estonians experienced corruption in the technical inspection of vehicles, in medicine, etc. Surveillance cameras were subsequently installed in vehicle inspection stations. The government’s anti-corruption strategy, presented yesterday, points to issues such as allotment of places in kindergartens as well as in education as a whole – this is where Estonians collide with corruption. No doubt, those issues need to be dealt with. But what would the corruption options be for directors of kindergartens if there was not a deficit of kindergartens? In more normal conditions, the word “kindergarten” would be altogether absent from corruption lists.
To improve trust levels in our society, the highest priority must be given to the dangers of political corruption, starting with the ethical values of parliamentarians. Estonians must be able to believe they are not being cheated by their elected leaders.
No doubt, wealth-based attempts to jump medical waiting lists and the twice lower corruption perceptions of non-Estonians are serious issues to be tackled. But more important, perhaps, are the lessons of the past six years, namely, that cameras at vehicle inspection stations do not guarantee a more successful society.