People in Armenia refrain from reporting corruption incidents out of fear of retaliation, Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center program manager Varuzhan Hoktanyan announced at a press conference on Wednesday, AzVision.az reports citing Epress.am.
`In the past people would refuse to speak out about corruption issues as they were assured that they would achieve nothing`, he added.
“Over the past years, there has been a disturbing trend of people becoming scared of reporting corruption cases. 41% of survey respondents said they never reported corruption because they were afraid of the consequences. Incidentally, in the past 68% of respondents wouldn`t talk about corruption because they were convinced it wouldn`t make a difference. This way of thinking has now fallen to 23%,” Hoktanyan announced, citing the findings of the social survey conducted by Transparency International in the period December 2015-May 2016.
The report, published by the international anti-corruption organization on Tuesday, ranked Armenia among the worst performing countries in Europe and Central Asia, saying that the country has serious corruption challenges – “corruption among members of parliament, high bribery rates and a negative social environment for engaging in anti-corruption actions” – in urgent need of being addressed.
Armenians afraid to report corruption - Global Corruption Barometer
17 November 2016
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