MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Perception of high corruption in Chile

A majority of Santiago's poor believe Chile suffers from a high level of corruption, according to a study by Universidad Católica's School of Administration and Economics.

Senators, Deputies and the Supreme Court were perceived as the most corrupt, while fire departments, universities, and high schools ranked as the least corrupt institutions.

The perception of corruption among the poor has remained high since 2003, when the poll was first taken, despite government initiatives to foster greater transparency. Seven out of ten, 70%, surveyed said corruption worsened in the past year, also in line with results from 2003 and 2004.

"These results make it clear that Chile's poor do not perceive the effects of pro-transparency measures that were implemented by the state over the last few years," said head researcher Manuel Yáñez.

Nine out of ten surveyed said that corruption permeates all levels of public administration, the same percentage that feels corruption is not punished, that the amount of corrupt employees is higher than what is known, and that corruption is not denounced for fear of reprisal.

The study involved face-to-face interviews with 354 residents of the poorest neighbourhoods in Santiago, including Cerrillos, Cerro Navia, Conchalí, Puente Alto, Renca, San Bernardo, and San Ramón. The results have a 4.1 percent margin of error.

Common forms of corruption attributed to public officials included: reducing the criminal sentence of an acquaintance (81%), accepting money to speed up an administrative task (70.7%), and legislative voting on behalf of business or personal interests (69.9%). Close to 69% also report that policemen take bribes to reduce punishment.

The perceived causes of corruption varied from a lack of values (52.3%) to personal ambition (48.3%), low salaries (42%), an inefficient judicial system (41.4%), and a lack of control in the public sector (38.3%).

While Chile's poor perceive the country to be corrupt, a 2005 report by Transparency International (TI) showed that Chile is the least corrupt Latin American nation. TI's "2005 Corruption Perceptions Index" (CPI) analyzed 159 nations and found Iceland, Finland, New Zealand and Singapore to be the world's least corrupt nations, with a TI index between 9.7 and 9.8.

The study took into account the perceptions of businessmen and analysts, and was based on 16 different polls taken at ten different institutions. The report explicitly states that the results refer to corruption among state officials and not to the private sector.

Chile ranked as the 21st least corrupt country in the world, next to Japan, and placed well ahead of all other Latin American nations. Chile ranked 20th the previous year, although the number of countries investigated last year was 145, or 14 less than this year.

By Renata Stepanov The Santiago Times - News about Chile