World Bank: Reported bribery dramatically drops in Albania

TIRANA, Feb. 14 – Albania has shown the most dramatic decline in reported bribe frequency in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) between 2005 and 2008, with the share of firms saying that unofficial payments are frequently dropping from 48 percent (the second highest in ECA in 2005) to 13 percent, which is about the same as the ECA average in 2008. The results are revealed in a recently published World Bank report on “Trends in corruption and regulatory burden in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.” The decline in bribe frequency is similarly impressive when it comes to reported bribe frequency in dealing with taxes (from 45 to 15 percent), customs (from 46 to 10 percent), and the courts (from 37 to 8 percent).
On the other hand, the share of firms reporting unofficial payments (43 percent in 2008, down from 70 percent in 2005) remains much higher than the ECA average of 16 percent and the SEE average of 14 percent, indicating that Albania needs to continue its efforts to reduce administrative corruption.
Albania continues to have high levels of reported bribe frequency for a number of transactions such as obtaining construction permits (29 percent of firms say informal payments/gifts are requested or expected); applying for water and electricity connections (23 and 22 percent of firms respectively say that informal payments are expected); and applying for import licenses (22 percent of firms say that informal payments are expected). Overall, bribes are more frequent in all but one (obtaining compulsory certificates) of the nine interactions with the government measured by BEEPS 2008, than in ECA overall. With regard to kickbacks for public contracts, the percentage of contract value paid as bribes was, on average, twice as high as the ECA average (4.4 and 2.2 percent in 2008, respectively). Finally, the WEF survey also indicates that Albania continues to display a high level of perceived state capture (unofficial payments by firms to distort fair competition to their advantage), which suggests a need for continued efforts to ensure a transparent regulatory framework.
In 2005, Albania ranked worst and Slovenia best in terms of corruption as an obstacle. In 2008, Albania’s rank improved, while Slovenia was surpassed at the other extreme by Estonia.
Albania made some progress, beginning the period as the country with the second-worst corruption problem but ranking better than a few additional countries by 2008.Albania exhibits the most dramatic improvement, followed by the Kyrgyz Republic and Lithuania.
Countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) made substantial progress in reducing administrative corruption and the regulatory burden on firms, according to the World Bank report. Neither corruption nor the regulatory burden that firms face are a bigger problem for firms in ECA countries than for countries at similar income levels in other regions.
The new study assesses the levels of and trends in corruption and the administrative burden from government regulation on private firms from 2005 to 2008. It is largely based on the fourth round of the EBRD-World Bank Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Surveys (BEEPS) covering over 11,000 firms in 29 ECA countries, and presents an update of the analysis provided in the earlier Anti-Corruption in Transition reports.