For the rule of law and strong public institutions to be capable of leading the EU integration process, the ability to prevent and sanction corruption are the key. Therefore a large number of activities to combat corruption in BiH are being supported by the EU.

One of the most important projects is ‘Strengthening the capacity of institutions in BiH to prevent and fight against corruption’. Its main goal is to support the establishment of the BiH Agency for the Fight against Corruption through the establishment, development and training of bodies and mechanisms at the state, entity and Brcko District level. The project is also aimed at ensuring the effective implementation of the BiH Strategy for the Fight against Corruption and Action Plan.

Project team leader, Roman Prah, talks to us about the project.

Has the project managed to define the critical areas where corruption occurs?

Our experts believe that BiH is facing the most dangerous form of corruption, the so-called “state capture” i.e., entrenched systematic corruption. BiH is still at a transition whose main challenge is to redefine the way in which the state interacts with the private sector. This is precisely because little or nothing has been done in terms of reducing influence of the private sector to policy development, especially in terms of reducing the impact of ‘private capital’ of interest in linking with politicians and other influential public officials.

We often observe private capital basically ‘capturing’ the state or, more precisely, the politicians and influential public servants, thus creating the rules in their favour, with significant expenditure of public finances – all, of course, at the public expense. “State capture” corruption is especially dangerous because it creates the conditions in advance through the impact of legislative and executive power under which politicians and influential public servants sell private equity public goods in the so-called ‘a la carte’ system.

Based on this, corruption is deeply present in all areas of society. It is very difficult to assess which area is more infected because in BiH there are no empirical studies that focus on the Victimology aspect of the corruption issue. Yet, based on publicly available data, we can say that corruption is especially present in the areas of health, education, public administration, law, justice, employment in public administration, especially in companies owned by the state, either entity, Brcko District, or local government.

What would you say has been the impact so far of this project?

The long-term impact can only be shown after a longer period of time. The project has certainly contributed to strengthening the capacity of BiH in the prevention and fight against corruption, in linking and co-ordinating the work of all the institutions. The project has contributed to strengthening the institutional framework by assessing the capacity of individual institutions and by providing recommendations with a view to strengthening institutional capacities and ethical standards. The project has also organized a large number of trainings for civil servants with the aim of improving their knowledge and skills necessary to prevent corruption.

Corruption in BiH was recognized as the fourth major problem by citizens, after unemployment, work of governments and poverty, namely, poor living standards, according to a survey conducted by UNODOC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) in 2011.