We know that corruption is developed in our country, but people always remind us about that sometimes. You might have heard that Armenia fills the 88th place in the lists of “International Transparency” with its corruption index. There are other 8 countries, which have the same index. Among those countries are Benin, Gabon, Tanzania, and Mali. But there is a positive thing here: we are in better conditions than our neighbors (Georgia is in the 130th place, and Azerbaijan is in the 137th place). Recently Richard Giragosyan (a citizen of Washington and specialist of international relations) reminded us about this: “The most dangerous thing for Armenia is not considered to be from outside (for instance from Turkey), but from inside. And this danger is corruption.”
We feel bad when foreigners start to speak about corruption. We have nothing to say when we see a foreigner, who almost hasn’t had contact with state bodies and state officers speaking about corruption. We have nothing to say, because we see more. We listen to foreigners and other people carefully, analyze what they say and try to come to a conclusion. But we know about these things better. But there are two things, which need to be discussed. First of all when they start to blame us intensively in such a tone of voice, that it seems to us that they are angels, our defense reflexes don’t let us listen to them in a duly manner. And here we start to blame them and prove that they are not angels either instead of trying to justify ourselves (on the other hand there is no way for this). This is how it really is, this is not only my opinion, but also there are good specialists who agree with this.
So, very often these foreigners support the development of corruption themselves. The “weakness” of transitional countries draws the attention of international corruption on those countries. Especially in cases when other countries give financial support and grants to their potential political partners. International business (in some cases these businesses are backed by the governments of those countries) uses corruption as a good chance for entering that market and finding its place and base in that country. Corrupted government is weak and easy to rule and this interests foreign partners. According to American specialists, about 80% of the big deals have been made by those international big companies, which bribed the authorities. There is an interesting thing too: there are countries where the governments encourage corruption by considering these expenses as “expenses for technical support” in their taxation codes. The following example can prove the mentioned fact: there was a period in France when companies could use their financial resources as “trade prospective expenses”, which actually was intended for bribing foreign politicians and authorized people. This is prohibited by the law starting from 1999. By the way, our government made a contract with French “Perno Rikar” company and sold the brandy factory before the adoption of this law. This is just for your information.
There are a lot of examples, but the abovementioned is enough. So we already know what corruption is, we know about its results on practice and also know what others think about it. For example we know from the works of Americans that if the corruption level is reduced more than the level of Mexico to the level of Singapore, the state income will be increased by 20%. By applying these calculations to Armenia, specialists came to a conclusion, that the annual loss of our country caused by corruption is more than 60 billion dram. But some foreigners or foreign companies have played their role in this too. The second thing, which is spoken about a lot is very important too. The second thing is that we are Armenians, we are not like the other nations; our mentality differs from the other ones. Can you imagine what will happen in Armenia if corruption disappears? Will society be satisfied? I don’t think the parents of students getting admitted into university will be satisfied with the fact that they can’t bribe their way out of admittance exams. Even businessmen will not be satisfied if they don’t come to an arrangement with taxation bodies. I can continue this very long. The problem is that we can’t say whether it is good for us or no. Just pay attention to the fact that there will many people will be disappointed. You can say that there are always people who are disappointed. But please believe me that this will be widespread, because we can’t walk down the street for 50 meters in order to cross the street in the right place.
And generally for Armenians it is very important to come to an arrangement with state officers, because if they don’t do that, people will call them “losers”.
This is the reality. The standardized programs of foreign countries will not apply here and will not be effective. We need a special approach.
In a word, even if the foreign countries and organizations provide more money and organize more programs, there will still be no benefit. We are not able to live without corruption even if this new Constitution is adopted. In a word, we will be free of corruption only when we are really ready to live without it and when we wish…