Top Official Unfazed By Russia’s Standing In ‘Subjective’ Corruption Ratings

(Interfax – September 19, 2012) The head of the Russian presidential administration, Sergey Ivanov, has said there is no need “to make a tragedy out” of the fact that Russia holds the top position in various international corruption ratings, Interfax news agency reported on 19 September.

“There is no need to feel outraged or to make a tragedy out of it. All ratings are subjective,” Ivanov, who also heads the presidium of the presidential anti-corruption council, said at a meeting with representatives of public organizations dealing with combating corruption, as reported by Interfax.

He went on to quote unnamed businessmen investing in Ukraine as saying that things there were “a nightmare” and compared to that, Russia was “an angel”.

Another example Ivanov gave to question the validity of ratings was an international business climate rating according to which it took 20 days to register a business in Russia. Ivanov said, as quoted by the same Interfax report, that the head of the Russian Federal Tax Service had personally gone through all the procedures together with the experts behind that rating. “It took just two days, so the rating was revised,” Ivanov said.

A later Interfax report from the same meeting said Ivanov had supported entrepreneurs’ proposal to set up “an anti-corruption map of Russia”.

He said: “It is an interesting idea because Russia is a huge country. In one part of the country the situation is different from what it is in another part of the country. There are leaders and outsiders.” At the same time Ivanov called for caution in developing this map, saying that it should be based “only on objective criteria”.