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Business, corruption and crime in Croatia: The impact of bribery and other crime on private enterprise

This survey of private businesses in Croatia reveals that corruption and other forms of crime are a great hindrance to private enterprise and have a negative effect on private investment. A significant percentage of businesses pay bribes to public officials repeatedly over the course of the year. Businesses in the Building and Construction sector are those most affected by bribery, followed by businesses in the Accommodation and Food service activities sector. The public officials with the highest risk of bribery in interactions with businesses are land registry officers, municipal or provincial officers, police officers and officials in the customs administration. While indicators of corruption perceptions are undoubtedly useful for raising awareness, this survey measures the actual experience of corruption and crime through representative sample surveys of businesses in order to provide a more realistic, evidence-based assessment of corruption and crime affecting the business sector. In so doing it focuses on the extent and pattern of bribery by businesses from five different sectors (accounting for over 70 per cent of all businesses in Croatia) in their frequent interactions with the public administration. Roughly one in ten businesses (10.7 per cent) that had contact with a public official in the 12 months prior to the survey paid a bribe to a public official. This means that, although significant variations exist between business sectors across the country, the average prevalence of business bribery in Croatia is very close to the share of ordinary Croatian citizens (11.2 per cent) who experienced the same in UNODC’s 2011 general population survey. The examination of the experience of businesses that pay bribes to public officials underlines the fact that corruption plays a role in the daily business of many companies. Bribe-paying businesses pay an average of 8.8 bribes per year, or about one bribe every six weeks. Both the prevalence and the frequency of bribery are substantially higher among small (10 to 49 employees) businesses than among businesses of other sizes. A substantial share of all the bribes paid to public officials by businesses in Croatia are paid in the form of food and drink (43.2 per cent), followed by the provision of other goods in exchange for an illicit “favour” by the public official (24.8 per cent) and the exchange of one favour for another (20.2 per cent). When bribes are paid in cash (14.3 per cent), the mean amount paid per bribe is 2, 019 Kuna, or the equivalent of 395 EUR-PPP. As for which party actually broaches the subject of kickbacks, in more than half (55.7 per cent) of all bribery cases the payment of a bribe is offered by a representative of the business without a prior request being made, whereas in some 43 per cent of cases payment is either explicitly (5.9 per cent) or implicitly (24.3 per cent) requested by the public official. In a further 12.8 per cent of cases, bribes are paid after a third-party request. The most common purposes for paying bribes cited by businesses is to “speed up business-related procedures” (42.5 per cent of all bribes), “receiving better treatment” (14.1 per cent) and “making the finalization of a procedure possible” (12.6 per cent). At the same time, over a tenth (11.7 per cent) of bribes paid serve no specific immediate purpose for the businesses paying them, suggesting that these are “sweeteners” given to public officials to “groom” them for future interactions in the interest of the company. As little as 2.4 per cent of bribes paid by businesses are reported to official authorities, mostly to the police, which suggests that businesses in Croatia often feel obliged to participate in bribery. This is also reflected in the main reasons cited for not reporting bribery: “the payment or gift was given as a sign of gratitude” (36.6 per cent) ; “giving gifts to public officials is common practice” (17.4 per cent) and “it would be pointless to report it as nobody would care” (16.9 per cent). Bribery in the private sector not only comprises bribes paid by businesses to public officials, it also takes place between businesses themselves in order to secure business transactions. Though lower than the prevalence of bribery between the private and public sector, at 5.1 per cent the prevalence of business-to-business bribery also constitutes a substantial problem in Croatia. This type of corruption is not to be confused with normal marketing or public relations activities, in that it specifically aims, through illegal means, to breach the integrity of the bribe-taker in exchange for a bribe. At less than 1 per cent, the share of business-to-business bribery incidents reported to relevant authorities is even smaller than the share of those involving public officials. Some 5.6 per cent of business representatives decided not to make a major investment in the 12 months prior to the survey due to the fear of having to pay bribes to obtain requisite services or permits, thus the impact of bribery on business activity can be substantial. The consequences of other more conventional crimes on a business’s property and economic activities can also be considerable, both in terms of direct costs stemming from physical damage and indirect costs in the form of insurance premiums, security expenditure and lost investment opportunities. For instance, around one in six businesses (16.7 per cent) in Croatia fall victim to fraud in various different guises in a year and such businesses are victimized an average of 5.7 times in that time period. Annual prevalence rates for burglary (6.8 per cent) and vandalism (5.4 per cent) in the private sector are also significant, as are the average number of times businesses affected fall victim to those crimes (1.8 and 5.1, respectively). Moreover, over the past 12 months some 0.7 per cent of all businesses in Croatia fell victim to extortion, a crime that can be linked to organized criminal groups. In marked contrast to corruption, a larger share of conventional crimes (on average, 48.5 per cent for five crime types) is reported to the police by businesses in Croatia. While the majority of business representatives (59.4 per cent) consider that the crime risk for their company has remained stable in comparison to the previous 12 months, more than one quarter (26.7 per cent) think it is on the increase and 8.7 per cent on the decrease. The fear of crime plays a very important role in the decision-making process of business leaders when it comes to making major investments. Although there are some differences by economic sector, on average 8.1 per cent of entrepreneurs in Croatia state that they did not make a major investment in the previous 12 months due to the fear of crime. Yet while about three quarters (74.7 per cent) of businesses in Croatia use at least one protective security system against crime, only four in ten (40 per cent) have any kind of insurance against the economic cost of crime. Together corruption and other forms of crime place a considerable burden on economic development in Croatia. Putting in place more and better targeted measures for protecting businesses against crimes, as well as for preventing corruption (such as effective internal compliance measures and other policies concerning corruption) could make that burden considerably lighter.

corruption; survey; business; Croatia

This report was prepared by UNODC Statistics and Surveys Section (SASS).