Israel – The Israeli public sector is perceived to be more corrupt now than it has been at any other time in the last 15 years, according to a global index released Thursday.
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Transparency International’s 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index ranked 183 countries on perceptions of public sector corruption. New Zealand, with 9.5 out of a possible 10, was the least corrupt, while Somalia and North Korea provided a stark contrast with scores of 1.0.
Israel’s score has gradually decreased since the index was first released in 1995, said Galia Sagy, director of Shvil – Transparency International’s Israel affiliate. She said Israel scored 7.71 in the first index, a far cry from its new score of 5.9.
“This country is in a critical period, in which the nation is making its voice heard and demanding social justice. The demand is for transparency, information, ethical conduct, the separation of power and money, and for a fight against corruption – because corruption is one of the main causes of social inequality,” Sagy said.
But Prof. Moshe Maor, an expert on corruption from the Hebrew University’s Department of Political Science, said Israel ranked lower not because of a deteriorating situation but because of a few highly visible cases in recent years. He referred specifically to the 2009 imprisonment of former ministers Avraham Hirschson and Shlomo Benizri, the July conviction of former Hadera mayor Shmuel Levy, and upcoming trials of other municipal leaders.
“These are just a few cases, but they are highly visible. As a result there is a deep perception amongst the Israeli people and the Israeli elite regarding the rise in corruption,” Maor told The Jerusalem Post. “I believe there were similar levels of corruption in the 60s, 70s, 80 and 90s as there are today, but now the media are much more aggressive in reporting on it.”
Maor said other countries could actually learn from Israel’s “efficient” anti-corruption structure. Numerous government agencies have powers of investigation, he said, naming the State Comptroller, Israel Police, Military Police, Israel Corporations Authority, Israel Antitrust Authority and Israel Securities Authority.
The problem is not the structure, but rather two decades of government interference in the work of these organizations, Maor said. He gave as an example the 2006 dismissal of Police Investigations Unit head Moshe Mizrahi. Mizrahi was forced out of his position by then Public Security Minister Gideon Ezra, in a move seen by some as an attempt to stifle the police’s abilities to listen in on politicians.
“It was a political decision,” he said. “If the government was serious about fighting public sector corruption, they would have provided proper funding for these agencies, wouldn’t interfere in nominations, and would stop attacking those agencies in the media, [because] these attacks undermine the legitimacy of the fight against public corruption, the legitimacy of these agencies, and the legitimacy of the heads of these agencies.”
Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post
so what else it new. They would never give Israel credit for having thier economy stronger than most of these other countries.
We all know that it exists in Israel. You should also realize that it is very shameful and particularly dangerous for Israel. Its a small country and rules of corruption and wealth disparity are really bad for the country of that size.
One of the criteria is “social justice”, which is generaly a code for Socialism. Thus, a country which bs”d is throwing off Socialism would go down on the list. Moreover, as Maor stated, there is an increased critical look at government and government officials as part of the process of discrediting statism. Thus, the word “perceived” is also important.