Study: 6 pct of Estonians admit bribing in past year

Photo: SCANPIX

In Estonia 6 percent of respondents admit giving a bribe or granting a gratuity in the last 12 months, results of an international corruption study show.

The results of the public opinion study «Global Corruption Barometer» conducted by Transparency International show that in Estonia the level of corruption is quite low.

Among European Union member states Estonia's result is «not bad,» chairman of the board of Transparency International Estonia Jaanus Tehver said when presenting the findings to the media on Tuesday. At the same time he stated that the situation in combating corruption has not improved.

The results show that the respondents gave bribes or granted gratuities the most in the field of medicine, in 7 percent of all cases. Almost half of the polled thought that the corruption situation has worsened in the past two years and only 17 percent believed the anti-corruption actions of the government to be effective.

Only 39 percent of the respondents believe that a single person can fight corruption which Tehver said is a serious problem. This indicator was one of the lowest among the 23 EU member states involved in the study.

Only 52 percent of Estonian respondents said they would be willing to report a corruption case, while in Germany, Denmark and the UK the indicator was over 90 percent. Political parties were considered the most corrupt institutions in Estonia, like in many other countries, Tehver said.

The study covered 107 countries in which 114,000 people in all were interviewed.