Some 72 per cent of Bulgarian respondents in the 2009 Global Corruption Barometer say that signaling corruption is useless.

The findings were made public Wednesday by Transparency International Bulgaria (TIB) at a news conference at the BTA National Press Club. The 2009 Barometer interviewed 73,132 people in 69 countries between October 2008 and February 2009.

TIB Executive Director Diana Kovacheva said that the survey reflects on personal experiences with corruption. Respondents graded corruption on a scale from one to five, with five being the highest score. Kovacheva said that Bulgaria is the only country of the EU bloc, which reported its judicial system as the most corrupt institution. On average EU-wide political parties are seen as the most corrupt institutions with a score of 3.7, followed by parliaments, civil servants and businesses.

Asked whether they filed a formal complaint, 82 per cent of Bulgarian respondents, who reported bribery, answer in the negative and only 3 per cent say they did. The rest did not give a definite answer, according to TIB Director Katya Hristova. Bulgarians are the largest number among respondents who do not see any point in signaling corruption. Some 12 per cent say they will not signal corruption over a fear of reprisal. However, 5 per cent of respondents EU-wide afraid to signal corruption, according to Hristova.

According to the survey the largest number of Bulgarian respondents, 19 per cent, have bribed a police officer, 10 per cent have bribed members of the judiciary and 7 per cent bribed officials of the land services.

The survey shows that since 2007 more Bulgarians have become skeptic about the government anti-corruption efforts. Back in 2007, 30 per cent of respondents were disillusioned compared with 36 per cent in 2009.

Overall, respondents gave a corruption score of 4.3 to political parties and of 4.2 to the Parliament.

Source: BTA