Interfax: Too soon to talk of radical success in fight against corruption – Medvedev

MOSCOW. Nov 1 (Interfax) – It is too soon to talk of radical success in the fight against corruption, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with Reuters.

“I think there is movement (on corruption) but it is probably too soon to talk about some kind of strong, radical successes,” Medvedev said in the interview.

He said Russia had in the last five years or so created a fairly modern regulatory environment and legal basis to fight corruption. In addition, government officials are required to file declarations and there is some control over major deals and spending by those officials.

Medvedev said in the interview that it was just as important to encourage citizens themselves to abide by the law – corruption is rife in Russia partly because people think it is acceptable to do what everybody else is doing, even if it’s wrong. This is not the case in countries where corruption is low, he said.

Some forms of corruption that existed in business in the 1990s and even the turn of the new century have disappeared, but new forms have emerged, and the state has a duty to fight them, he said.

Even so, Russia’s success in fighting corruption has been acknowledged, for example Russia has climbed more than 20 notches in the Doing Business ranking, Medvedev said in the interview.