RC#41: Po' Polls

published in Eastern Economist #425, March 26, 2002

“Poll reveals links between Ukrainians, bribery and civil servants,” the Deutsche Presse Agentur reported in mid-March. I grabbed the report, thinking it might tell us how people coded telephone messages, which bars they hung out in to cut their deals, and where the drops were.

            But I was sorely disappointed. In fact, I was quite annoyed.

            “Nine out of every 10 Ukrainians has paid a bribe to a government official or knows someone who has,” was the headline-grabbing first sentence.

            Let me say up front that I don’t want to disparage the Ukrainian Center of Economic and Political Research. I have no doubt that they do honest, professional research. I’m sure they do all their screening, polling and compiling using the most modernized, standardized and errorized methodology.

            What’s more, I don’t doubt at all that their numbers are more-or-less right.

            I just don’t like how they reported on them.

            Take the sensationalistic first sentence. If there is a family of 5-6 people and the one who’s the driver paid off a traffic cop, the remaining 4-5 would definitely know about it.

            I just don’t remember when “knowing someone who said they did something” constituted serious evidence of that something. In court, this is called hearsay. And hearsay is usually discounted as evidence.

            The report then admitted that “a whopping 49% of Ukrainians” – leaving out the critical term “polled” – “had personally paid cash to state employees.” The remaining 40% (polled) were “personally familiar with an incident, usually concerning a family member, where a civil servant had accepted cash in exchange for violating the law.”

            Further on, it turns out that “Ukrainians widely consider traffic cops” (and the boys who handle the payment of street-side parking fees, if you ask me) the most common kind of “bribester.” Suddenly, the findings lose much of their punch.

            Before I go any further, I have a confession to make.

            I know a lot of Ukrainians who have paid cash under the table. To get their kids into a particular school. To get their cars past the annual inspection. To get specialized or speedy medical treatment. To get an advertising agency to work with them. To get a decent bed in a hospital. To pay less than the full traffic fine. To get a visa to the US. To get out of going before a judge to pay a fine. And so on.

            Sometimes there is little choice. Others offer cash themselves. Lots of it has to do with jumping queues, getting around official rates, or speeding up procedures.

            Some of these payments are direct. Some are in the form of “contributions” of one kind or another.

            I even know some foreigners who have done the same. To get a project approval or a license. To get out of paying a discriminatory rate that is more than twice what locals pay for the same service. To avoid going before a judge. And so on.

            But let’s get back to what this poll admits is the most common situation where blood money exchanges hands in Ukraine: with traffic cops. Personally, in nearly five years of driving around this country, I’ve never been asked to pay a bribe or to settle “unofficially.” Whenever I’ve been fined on the spot (this practice was dropped in May 2001), I’ve always been given a receipt for the full amount – a whopping UAH 17 ($3.20 at the time).

            An American friend of mine, who did a lot more driving than most people I know, told me once, back in the States: “If I can engage a cop in a conversation, he’ll never fine me.”

            I took his advice to heart here in Ukraine. Most of the time, I’ve argued, kidded, wheedled, pled, or smiled my way out of fines. Including one that would have cost me about US $100 because I failed to recognize on a dark rainy night that a big bus following me down the road and cutting me off was a cop trying to ticket me! In the end, this guy fined me a more reasonable Hr 20 for a minor violation. I gladly paid it and got my receipt.

            No cop has ever asked me for a kopek on the side. They’ve been unbearably rude at times, but no baksheesh.

            Of course, my lone experience doesn’t constitute proof of anything much, either.

            But if the perception is correct, that Ukraine is Europe’s “most corrupt country,” below even Russia and Albania, as Transparency International says, this UCEPR poll is hardly a good example of hard evidence.

            For instance, which 2,033 Ukrainians were polled? Judging by the main suspects – traffic cops, judges, college profs – no rural Ukrainians were polled. In fact, I’m willing to bet most polls don’t touch many parts of the population. People without phones, people out in the countryside, people in hospitals or sanatoria, housebound pensioners. This survey, like most, was based largely on working age, urban Ukrainians.

            What you end up with is this: “Nearly one in two urbanites aged 18-60, representing 30% of all adult Ukrainians, have paid a cash bribe to a government official, usually a traffic cop.”

            It’s the truth. But it sounds a lot less impressive.

            There was a reason for this. The UCEPR seems to have had an agenda. “The poll’s results contradicted claims by members of the government running for re-election to parliament that reports of corruption were exaggerated.”

            Unfortunately, the way this poll was presented only confirmed the claims of these politicians – that reports about corruption are exaggerated. I agree. •

– from the notebooks of Pan O.

Note: 12 Ukrainians in Kyiv ranging in age from 19 to 38 were polled for this piece. The margin of errror depends on how many of them fibbed.