The central government mostly demanded bribes from private companies, according to the survey of the Economic Chamber of Macedonia (SKSM) of 138 private companies in the country. More than half answered that they were asked for a bribe, and in 78% of the companies the requests came from the central state government.
The figures show that five companies were asked for more than 100,000 euros in bribes, and for the majority of companies the bribes went up to 10,000 euros. From those who participated in business contracts, up to 10 percent of the value of the contract was requested as bribe.
But not only money was demanded.
“In what form was the corruption requested?” The most answers to this question are that it is in the form of money. Next comes the answer – a gift, then a service, and then there is a group of answers like getting someone a job, getting promoted in the company, some kind of donation to a political party, etc., Zoran Jovanovski, advisor to the president of SKSM, pointed out.
Companies often received requests for bribes in the process of obtaining various permits or approvals, inspection, customs, contracts or court procedures.
“The most answers for corruption are in the way of obtaining a permit, approval, inspection, customs, etc. There is also a group of other answers that are in some other procedure, tax procedure, judicial, cadastral etc. Zero answers were received for the procedure of the Public Prosecutor’s Office or a procedure when someone was conducting an audit – in such a procedure there was no corrupt request.” – says Jovanovski.
Most companies do not report requests for bribes, some of them think it will have zero effect, and some have stated that they will face massive problems if they contact a public prosecutor, fearing their business would be closed or would lose a license.
It is no surprise that this survey went out only after the fall of the DUI-SDSM Government.
