Leanid Zaika: Corruption is integral feature of Belarusian authorities

Belarus has well-organised and large-scale corruption.

It is an integral feature of the Belarusian authorities, economist Leanid Zaika, the head of the analytical centre Strategy, said at a meeting of experts “Anti-Corruption Platform as Answer to System's Challenges” that was held at the headquarters of the United Civil Party in Minsk on December 16, BelaPAN reports.

“The first wave of corruption was when Viachaslau Kebich was the prime minister. We got the new president due to that corruption wave. He represented himself as a corruption fighter, and it gave a strong political effect. The next wave of corruption has been continuing for over 20 years,” he said.

Zaika thinks that “Belarusians have faced well-organised and large-scale corruption”.

Siarhei Kaliakin, the head of the Belarusian Left Party Fair World, thinks that “Lukashenka have done nothing after he came to power with anti-corruption slogans”. “Corruption has become an obstacle to the state's life and development under his rule, because officials got huge power without any control,” he said.

Harry Pahaniayla, the chairman of the legal commission at the Belarusian Helsinki Committee (BHC), says: “The current authorities will not fight against corruption, because it is the authorities that created it. It was the authorities that built this corrupt state.”

“The state cannot give an official the financial foundation to prevent any thoughts of using his or her power for personal benefit. We are a very poor state with the excessive number of officials. The state is unable to feed all of them,” he said.

Pahaniayla spoke about the experience of foreign countries, where “the problem of corruption is small yet exists, because judges, prosecutors and government officials have incomes enough to esteem their reputation”. “We have a different situation: an official understands he is covered by the authorities. It is only in rare cases that he can be taken to account. They also know that they can avoid responsibility due to a decision of Aliaksandr Lukashenka even if a criminal case is opened,” he said.