Fighting Corruption as a Condition for Sustainable Regional

Development

Isabel A. Morayta

, Galina A. Menshikova

and Nikolay A. Pruel

Petersburg State University, 7/9 Universitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg, Russia

Keywords: Corruption, Regional Sustainability, Voluntary SDG Reports, Corruption Assessments, Public Information

Transparency.

Abstract: The article focuses on corruption as a factor accompanying a sustainable development. Our UN SDG reports

analysis revealed two trends. The first one is that the data on the fight against corruption is not presented, i.e.

there are no indicators for task 16.5. The second one is that the reporting assessment methodology has not

been discussed in practice, and the fight against corruption is not reflected in the UN Consolidated Reports

for 2019 and 2020. We think this is unacceptable, particularly in relation to Russia. The publication

methodological basis is based on three directions in the study of corruption. The first one (classic) justifies

the role of corruption as a factor that destroys the social order and withdraws huge amounts of money from

the development resource base (country, region). The second is a modern trend that analyzes the methods of

its adequate assessment. The third is the current methods and of the UN and OECD (2020) recommendations

analysis on improving the collecting methods and evaluating indicators. The publication substantiates the role

of the fight against corruption as a condition for the country and the region sustainable development and

suggests tightening the requirements for its inclusion in national voluntary reports. It is proposed to strengthen

control over open information on the websites of the Russian Federation regions.

1 INTRODUCTION

It is generally accepted, not only for Russia, but for

the whole world that corruption is one of the most

important evils. Here are the words of one of the IMF

experts Kristin Logart, expressed by him on the UN

SDG website: "Corruption at its core weakens the

state capacity to perform its functions. It undermines

the ability to raise the necessary revenue, and it also

distorts spending decisions in the sense that State

authorities may be inclined to choose projects that

provide kickbacks rather than projects that provide

economic and social returns. This has a negative

impact on growth and economic opportunities. This

has a negative impact on fairness and equity, as the

poor have the most to lose from cuts in social

spending and investments in sustainable

development. This has a negative impact on

economic stability, as the toxic combination of low

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incomes and wasteful spending creates the conditions

for deficits to easily spiral out of control".

Addressing corruption is clearly important for

SDG-16, which aims to "Promote a peaceful and open

society for sustainable development, ensure access to

justice for all and build effective, accountable and

inclusive institutions at all levels"

(https://blogs.imf.org/).

At the same time, as our study on the UN final

reports for 2019 and 2020, as well as the

recommendations of the UN and OECD on the

indicators for national voluntary reports selection,

showed that the word corruption is in them (at least in

the translation into Russian versions), it is not used

and the state power corruption problem itself is not

considered (SDG's Report, UN, 2019), (SDG's

Report, UN, 2020) and (Guidance note, 2019),

(Recommendations OECD, 2019). It is difficult to

assess this situation. Two answers are seen. The first

one is the SDG leaders, who are forced to support the

822

Morayta, I., Menshikova, G. and Pruel, N.

Fighting Corruption as a Condition for Sustainable Regional Development.

DOI: 10.5220/0010598208220827

In Proceedings of the International Scientiﬁc and Practical Conference on Sustainable Development of Regional Infrastructure (ISSDRI 2021), pages 822-827

ISBN: 978-989-758-519-7

importance of the SDGs idea, to seek to enlist the the

heads of state support, and are accordingly ready for

some tactical (possibly temporary) retreats. The

second one is that perhaps the problems of hunger,

climate warming and ecological balance in general

are more important for the world than the fight against

corruption.

To the country's credit, Russia has included

minimal reporting on corruption in its Voluntary

National Review of the Implementation of the 2030

Agenda for Sustainable Development (Russian

Federation (Voluntary National Review, 2020). As a

success in the fight against corruption (task 16.5),

data on the reduction of the suspicious financial

transactions volume from 23.4 trillion rubles (2015)

to 16.0 trillion were given. (2018), which is a

decrease in their share in the budget of the Russian

Federation from 28.1% to 15.7%. The dynamics of

three other indicators are shown in Table 1.

Be advised that papers in a technically unsuitable

form will be returned for retyping. After returned the

manuscript must be appropriately modified.

Table 1: Indicators dynamics that characterize the fight

against corruption in the country according to the DNI

data*.

Indicator 201

201

2018

Number of

corruption-related

crimes suppressed

(thousand units)

26 25.5 22.6 23.4

From these, crimes

classified as

committed on a

large and especially

large scale or

causing major

damage (thousand

units)

14.7 13.8 12.7 12.5

Number of

identified persons

who committed acts

of corruption

(

thousand

)

3.9 4.7 5.1

5.4

*Voluntary national review of the Agenda for

Sustainable Development implementation for the

period up to 2030. Russian Federation. Moscow,

2020.

Despite the generally positive dynamics in the

fight against corruption, activists from the "Civil

Control" point to the lack of the governmental activity

in this direction. So, Elena Shakhova (Chairman of

the NGO "Civil Control") believes: "Russia's policy

on SDG-16 is inconsistent. Along with such positive

changes as the jury competence expansion, the

Article 282 (Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

(hatred or enmity inciting) partial decriminalization,

the trial mandatory audio recording, the decline in

compliance with justice international standards. The

report reflects that violence and corruption are

widespread in Russian society and government

institutions. There is no political will to solve these

problems, and legislation that restricts public access

to information is actively being created and applied".

2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Leaving aside the moralizing approach (Aristotle, N.

Machiavelli, T. Hobbes, Grotsky, G.G. Zh. - Zh.

Rousseau and many others), it is correct, but not very

constructive, let us consider the modern one as more

utilitarian, limiting the field of interest to public

administration. This approach is considered to be the

"principal – agent" model (or its variant – "patron-

client"), which explains the public administration

essence in a society based on an undeveloped

democracy. These models assume that the population

(as a principal) transfers public resources (property)

for the use of the agent (state). This model for

enterprises has been formulated by Jenson M.,

Mackling W (Jenson, Mackling, 1976). J. Stiglitz

(Stiglitz, 1986) extended it to the public

administration field, where it found wide acceptance

(Rose-Akkerman, 1999). further development of the

approach, especially under the influence of the

administrative reforms principles and the intention to

Good Governance implementation, was deepened by

the openness and transparency theories as the basis

for combating corruption (Shleifer, Vishny, 1993),

(Sarkar, 2020).

The second basis of our approach is the theories

that form the methodological basis for assessing

corruption in public administration. Given that

corruption is an illegal activity, that it seeks and often

finds latent forms of implementation, it is extremely

difficult to assess it (Meyer, 2018), (Ankamah,

Khoda, 2018). Nevertheless, such attempts are being

made, in particular, corruption indices are being

actively developed and applied in practice; three

methods are used.

The first one is a "corruption perception"

assessment using survey data, in which respondents

are asked about the extent to which their field of

activity is corrupt; the assessment is usually asked to

be given in a ranking scale. The second one is that

respondents are asked to report how often they

themselves (or their friends, relatives, and others from

Fighting Corruption as a Condition for Sustainable Regional Development

823

their professional, social and other environment) have

to deal with corruption. The third one is to use the

observable and measurable characteristics.

It is clear that the first two measurement methods,

one way or another, are subjective, which gives

reason to doubt their correctness. The corruption

prevalence general perceptions may reflect prevailing

stereotypes, rather than an objective state of affairs.

The perception subjectivity factor is described in the

classic work of Noelle Neumann E. (Noelle-

Neumann, 1984). In addition, researchers have long

identified a perception paradox or "halo effect"

(Bardhan, 2004), based on the recognition that the

more actively the fight against corruption is

conducted, which the population informs the media

about, the higher its negative perception by residents

is. It is a paradox that in countries where the fight

against corruption is not conducted or at least its

progress and results are not discussed in the media,

the population readily recognizes the fact of its

reduction, expressing judgments that the government

is fighting corruption.

The advantage of the third approach to measuring

corruption is its objectivity, however, it is extremely

difficult to identify such indicators (at least in full,

reflecting the real picture). Usually, scientists use the

indicators that characterize either the fight against

corruption consequences (economic development,

growth in the quality of life, etc.) (Golden, 2005) or

its prerequisites (information openness) (Fazekas,

Kocsis, 2020), or indirect estimates. An example of

the latter is a study conducted by (Fishman Miguel,

2007), where the level of corruption in the country

was estimated by the number of fines paid by

diplomatic workers for parking in front of the UN

building in New York.

The third one, methodological cornerstones, is a

study of the developed and applied international

corruption assessment ratings. These include, first of

all, two generally recognized corruption monitoring

systems. The first one is the non-governmental

organization "Transparency International", which has

been annually compiling the Corruption Perceptions

Index since 1995 (its essence is the first method). The

second rating has been compiled since 1996 by the

World Bank. This is part of a comprehensive study on

the public administration quality, which, among other

things, calculates the Control of Corruption Index. It

is based on the second approach described above.

This also includes numerous comparative studies on

corruption between countries (Treisman, 2007),

regions (Libman, Kozlov. 2013), municipalities

(Kloviene, Valanciene, 2013).

Let us name two guidelines for conducting anti-

corruption monitoring that are interesting either for

their novelty or for their involvement in the authors

of this publication proposals. The first one is the

"Guidelines for Integrity in the Public Sector, OECD,

2020". The second one is Guidelines for Using Open

Data to Fight Corruption, 2017". It was developed by

open data experts, government officials and civil

society representatives from Transparency

International in collaboration with other international

organizations. It contains 30 mandatory data key sets,

including anti-corruption activities, that should be

contained on the site, i.e. officials and legal entities

registers, open budget data, information on

government contracts, a unscrupulous suppliers

database and others.

3 THE STUDY DESCRIPTION:

OVERVIEW OF RATINGS IN

THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

In order to assess corruption in the Russian regions,

we conducted a rating analysis. The basic and only

permanent rating is the rating compiled by the

Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian

Federation. Sometimes corruption measurements are

made at the HSE Anti-Corruption Center, but they are

not permanent and do not include a regional cross-

section, focusing on the procurement field. The well-

known rating of TIR (the Russian branch of

Trasparency International) also does not have a

regional section. Indirectly, the situation in regions,

however, without taking into account corruption,

reflects the cities and governors ratings.

The corruption rating compiled by the Prosecutor

General's Office is good because it is based on

objective data, on cases in courts, their assessments

and information about punishments. In the monthly

tables, it has been presented on the site since 2016, so

information to assess its dynamics has been

accumulated, see "The state of crime", January 2020.

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824

Table 2: Information from the Prosecutor General's Office

on previously investigated cases of corruption (where N is

the number of cases considered for 9 months in 2020, T is

the number of cases sent to court, % is the ratio between the

first and second ones).*

The violation name N

T %

Total 22,528 17,295 76.8

Receiving a bribe 2,507 2,349 93.7

Givin

a bribe 2,712 1,474 54.3

Mediation in briber

744 433 58.1

Small sized briber

4146 2,539 61.2

It is not possible to comment on the results of the

article. It is alarming that more than half of the cases

(12,419) are not specified.

Table 3: Information on the amount of material damage

caused by corruption-related crimes, its compensation

(including the information in %) and the value of property

(including the amount of money seized (in thousands of

rubles)).

Indicators that

characterize the

dama

2019 2020 %

The amount of

material damage

cause

105,891,3

45,354,4

42.8

The amount of the

compensated

damage by its

voluntary

repayment or

property, money,

valuables

withdrawal

5,299,362 5,206,39

98.2

The value of the

property

(including the

funds under

seizure

)

22,910,14

18,517,9

80.8

It is clear that the rating shows positive overall

results. As for the regional monitoring, it provides the

following statistics for the federal districts (the

number of corruption-related crimes per 100

thousand people is indicated): the Volga Federal

District – 25.5, the Central Federal District – 21.2, the

Southern Federal District – 12.2, the Siberian Federal

District – 10.3, the Ural Federal District – 10.1, the

North Caucasus Federal District – 8.1, the

Northwestern Federal District – 7.0, and the Far

Eastern Federal District – 5.6. In the whole country

this coefficient is 21.1.

According to the report, the lowest level of

corruption was observed in Ingushetia, Khakassia,

Altai Region, Vologda, Moscow, Murmansk, Penza

Region, St. Petersburg, Sevastopol and the Yamalo-

Nenets Autonomous District. The crime rate in these

regions varies from 6.41 to 9.94 per 100 thousand

people. The report gave the corruption crimes

distribution by field of activity. The leaders were the

budget funds development, including those allocated

within the targeted programs and national projects

framework, the auctions organization, property

management, control and audit, law enforcement,

housing and communal services. The report also

refers to corruption in law enforcement agencies.

The overall result of the Prosecutor General's

Office rating –"The corruption is still popular. The

number of bribe takers increased by 5%, and

corruption crimes increased from 28.3 thousand to

29.4 thousand. The most expanse to bribe-takers is in

Bashkortostan, the Stavropol Territory and, as usual,

in the bread-and-butter city for bureaucrats, Moscow.

In total, since the beginning of 2020, corrupt

criminals have caused damage to the country by more

than 45.4 million rubles".

Assessing positively the work done by the

Prosecutor General's Office, highlighting its system,

regularity and publicity, the researchers criticize it

according to the following parameters. The chairman

of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, Kirill

Kabanov, pointed to the orientation of the rating on

the actual indicator, i.e. the implementation of the

anti-corruption legislation requirements, the national

plan implementation requirements execution. As a

result, he concludes: "Accordingly, this is a kind of

consensus (of these indicators). You can agree with

him, you can work with him, but at the same time,

from the corruption point of view, as a rental

business, he, of course, does not give a complete

picture".

Denis Primakov, the lawyer of the Center for

Anti-Corruption Research and TIR Initiatives

indicates: "The prosecutor's rating cannot be

considered objective, as it contains only a part of the

information. It does not contain, for example, data on

the embezzlement and bribes volume". "Most likely,

the rating takes into account grassroots corruption.

Such criminal cases of receiving/giving bribes are

brought against teachers, doctors, and so on. It is quite

possible that according to such indicators, the regions

announced by the Prosecutor General's Office are

really ahead".

Dmitry Zhirkov, the Board of the All-Russian

Public Organization "Safe Fatherland" Chairman, the

member of the Expert Council of the Committee on

Security and Anti-Corruption of the State Duma of

the Russian Federation, joins this evaluation.

According to him, in addition to the dry figures, there

Fighting Corruption as a Condition for Sustainable Regional Development

825

are still a lot of problems related to the state order,

with the state corporations, such as Gazprom,

Rosneft, Rushydro interests.

Many experts are concerned about regional

assessments. D. Primakov expresses doubts that the

capital is not listed in the top bribe takers regions. He

points to one possible reason, in the capital, the

volume of grassroots corruption is less than in the

regions. "After all, teachers here take much less

bribes, this is a prosperous region", but latent, or

veiled, corruption is much higher here, and it is

clearly not taken into account in the rating, according

to his opinion.

Kurlenya, K. Kabanov believes that the capital is

more exposed to the risk of corruption, compared to

other Russian regions, as there are large projects and

a large amount of money here. The expert also

referred to St. Petersburg and the regions "with large

target programs" to similar territories.

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

So, assessing the situation with corruption regional

monitoring in the Russian Federation, we can draw a

number of conclusions. First, the main rating is the

provided by the Prosecutor General's Office of the

Russian Federation. It is open, covered by the media

and regular. It is based on objective data, since it is

collected in courts on the actual documents basis.

Other ratings exist, but since they are compiled by

independent organizations, they cannot be conducted

regularly. Secondly, it is not complete and,

accordingly, does not reflect the total amount of

corruption in the country. Third, it is not able to track

what is proposed in the recommendations for the UN

and OECD SDGs, namely, to take into account the

amount of open data on the regions sites (1),

including at least part of the 30 recommended key

arrays such as the officials and legal entities register,

open budget data, information on government

contracts, the unscrupulous suppliers register, the

officials assets/income declarations database, and

others.

We need a new (comprehensive) corruption

rating, which should contain information based on

common data standards, the list and content of which

should be strictly regulated, and the designated

technical details of information availability ensuring.

It should be taken into account that the volume and

structure of this information should change in the

expansion direction, taking into account specific

cases, data structuring in relation to the stages of legal

violations, i.e. prevention, detection, investigation,

law enforcement.

5 CONCLUSIONS

Once Russia has entered on the sustainable

development path, the country should put the regional

aspect in the center of attention, realizing that only in

this way will the result be obtained. By taking the first

step, by submitting a voluntary review to the UN,

Russia has embarked on a road where the path to the

end is much further than to the beginning. As part of

the first report preparation, the available statistical

base in the country and in the regions was checked. It

is revealed that there are experts, that the

recommendations of the UN and the OECD contain

proposals for the necessary indicators structure. We

need the political will, we need laws that define the

heads of regions responsibility for the amount of open

information, for example, given on websites. Such a

law applies to local self-government, and it seems that

the time to extend it to a higher level of government

has come.

In an effort to develop the regions economy,

increase the quality of life (the effectiveness of the

fight against corruption), it is advisable to increase the

heads of regions responsibility for their

implementation, making reporting the main reason

for maintaining their status. It seems that the

Ministry of Economic Development experience in

monitoring the federal targeted programs financing

can be used. The governor of the region should not be

re-elected in the absence of positive dynamics in the

region development.

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