‘Hardly befitting a great power’ Transparency International ranks the world's corruption, and Russia rises to 119th place

On Wednesday, January 27, the international anti-corruption movement Transparency International (TI) published its annual Corruption Perceptions Index. It is one of the leading barometers measuring corruption throughout the world. In the new rankings, Russia rose 17 spots to 119th place, where its neighbors are Azerbaijan, Guyana, and Sierra Leone. Meduza special correspondent Ilya Azar attended the presentation ceremony in Moscow, and spoke to the organization's vice president, Elena Panfilova, about what the study has to say about Russia. In Panfilova's opinion, Russia owes its improving situation to the country's financial crisis, which is “constricting the foundation for corruption.”

“Once in a blue moon, we actually have some news to share! For ten years, we didn't know what to tell you, because Russia was always stuck in the same place, sliding up and down just a tenth of a rating point,” Panfilova said, beginning her presentation. Then she explained that it only seems like good news at first glance. “We can hardly celebrate the fact that we're in 119th place. I maintain that being ranked anywhere in the bottom third on the index is still a national disgrace. This is hardly a result befitting a great power, and we all want Russia to be a great power,” Panfilova said.

Transparency International updates its Corruption Perceptions Index every year. The study is based on several ratings and surveys of experts in various countries, including representatives of the World Bank and the Asian and African Development Banks, and human rights activists. On a scale of 1 to 100, the more points a country scores, the lower its level of corruption. Russia scored 29 points last year, rising from 136th place to 119th place among a total of 168 nations. According to experts, the least corrupt countries in the world are Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. Those with the highest levels of corruption are Afghanistan, North Korea, and Somalia. 

“I expect that, not far away, behind the [Kremlin's] red walls, they're cracking open the champagne and happily celebrating Russia jumping two whole points,” Panfilova joked. She says Azerbaijan, Guyana, and Sierra Leone make for “wonderful, but not mindblowing company.” “We've actually moved toward the countries we should be among. We'd be opening up the champagne, too, if Russia had managed to join the rest of the Eastern European countries, whose average score is 33 points. So far, there's nothing to celebrate,” Panfilova concluded.

She says there are two explanations for Russia's improved corruption rating. First, “in Russia there's now less corrupt money because the country has less money overall, thanks to the economic crisis.” Second, “legislation that requires civil servants to declare their property and limits their ability to own property abroad has started producing some results.”

According to Anton Pominov, who heads Transparency International's Russia branch, another reason to exercise especially cautious optimism about the country's higher ranking is that it's not an objective reflection of the reality on the ground, but merely an assortment of ratings and opinions by foreign experts. “Corruption can be latent, and we can't say for certain if it went up or not,” Pominov said. “Transparency International is criticized for the Corruption Index. They say it doesn't show anything, but in fact it reflects how well the environment is developing in a particular society.”

Panfilova says experts noticed that many advertisements for the sale of real estate in Prague, Budapest, Paris, and Nice contained phone numbers showing Russian mobile phone prefixes. Experts interpreted this to mean that Russian state officials are jettisoning their foreign property. “The ban on owning property abroad is beginning to squeeze these ghouls back within Russia's borders,” Panfilova explained, adding, “A law-abiding bureaucrat hurries to sell off his apartment in Prague, but entrenched corruption doesn’t give in, and goes looking for new feeding grounds.”

A day before TI's corruption report was revealed, the Kremlin held a meeting of its own Anti-Corruption Council, with Vladimir Putin in attendance. The president was feeling optimistic and said that more than 8,800 people were convicted of corruption in the first nine months of 2015. Nearly another 11,000 officials were disciplined, Putin said, for violating anti-corruption standards. Sergei Ivanov, who heads both Putin's administration and the presidium of the Anti-Corruption Council, submitted two new proposals: create new penalties for accepting bribes under 10,000 rubles ($130), and bring to justice civil servants who use third parties to receive bribes (a growing practice where the bribe goes not to the official himself, but to one of his proxies outside the state bureaucracy).

Panfilova is certain it's no coincidence the Kremlin timed its Anti-Corruption Council meeting to come a day before TI's event. “They know about our index; it was precisely when researching it that we learned what Moscow's plans were. The Anti-Corruption Council was supposed to meet in December, when Transparency International normally releases its corruption index. But this time we decided to push it to January, and—poof—they moved their meeting, too,” Panfilova told Meduza.

She says the Kremlin's council came to contradictory conclusions. “Figures about 8,000 and 11,000 [convictions] sound great, but don't insult my intelligence. The number of prosecutions in the fight against corruption says absolutely nothing about the effectiveness of law enforcement. This has about as much to do with battling corruption as Transparency International's work has in common with dog grooming.”

According to Panfilova, comments from the Kremlin's council meeting “plunged” her into “cognitive dissonance,” because Putin opened the event by saying that Russia “needs to tackle nepotism and conflicts of interest,” but moments later his chief of staff declared that state officials' relatives shouldn't be banned from running businesses. “I've found no facts whatsoever implicating the attorney general in any illegal actions—I stress that I'm talking specifically about the attorney general,” Ivanov said, answering a question about Yuri Chaika and his business-owning sons. “They would have been better off talking amongst themselves, because officials relatives running businesses is precisely what you call nepotism and conflicts of interest,” Panfilova fired back.

The Anti-Corruption Foundation's investigation into Yuri Chaika's family, incidentally, wasn't factored into Transparency International's corruption report. Research for the index was completed in August 2015, and the revelations about Chaika's family were published only in December.

At TI's presentation, Panfilova and Pominov explained that Russia's problems with corruption haven't gone anywhere, despite the positive developments last year. “The punishment for corruption is minimal. We're seeing ransacked state budgets for regional and oblast governments and for major federal projects, but when somebody is caught, the worst he faces is being fired for a loss of trust,” Panfilova warned. She also complained that internationally coordinated anti-corruption efforts have failed in Russia. “Just browsing through Facebook, we learned that [State Duma] Alexey Mitrofanov [who's suspected of corruption and has already been stripped of his parliamentary immunity] was hanging out in Zagreb [Croatia's capital]. So what now?” she asked in frustration.

Transparency International says Russia's authorities need to make the heads of state agencies and regional governments responsible for failing to fulfill the National Anti-Corruption Plan, if the country is serious about the campaign. Moscow also needs to introduce into the legal system effective measures instituting real punishments for illicit enrichment, creating and publishing a list of all public figures who violate the law, ensuring the independence of the judiciary from the executive branch, and avoiding discriminatory courts.

“We think that our levels of corruption are the worst,” Panfilova said of Russians and their country. “But in Southeast Asia, Africa, or Latin America—my goodness—it's really a nightmare. We in Russia have a great deal of corruption. It's systematic, comprehensive, and it's seriously entrenched. But that doesn't mean it's the world's absolute worst. [On the TI index], we used to be between Kenya and Cameroon because of hyper-corrupt consumption. We looked like that because our guys were jet setting all around the world like snow plows [buying up real estate]. Now, finally, we've started to look like we ought to, resembling Azerbaijan or Pakistan—countries with resources and potential, but weighed down by a failed political process and system of government.”

Before concluding, Panfilova and Pominov touched on TI's own problems with Russia's law on “foreign agents.” “They dragged us onto their list, and charged us 600,000 rubles [almost $8,000] for the trouble. So these officials are clawing at state funds and we're fighting them, but in the end they had to let at least a little bit of money [the "foreign agent" penalty] reach the government's coffers,” Panfilova joked. 

Incidentally, she already has a plan, should Transparency International be forced to shut down in Russia. “Anton and I put our heads together and we've decided to start an anti-corruption Cossack choir, if they shut us down. Cultural organizations aren't subject to the law on ‘foreign agents,’ and I'd just like to see them try to close down something Cossack. So we've got a plan, is what I'm saying,” Panfilova said assuringly.