VABALOG

Korruptsiooni jagub igale poole, kus liigutatakse miljoneid teiste raha

Tillukeses Eestis elades võib vahel jääda mulje, et siin on korruptsioon võtmas mõõtmeid, mis tekitavad piinlikust kõigile, kes peavad enda sõpradele ja tuttavatele mõnes näiliselt tsiviliseeritumas riigis nagu näiteks Kanada selgitama, mis siin üldse toimub.

Alati võib ennast lohutada teadmisega, et ilmselt on lood märksa kurvemad Usbekistanis, Nigeerias, Venemaal või Afganistanis, kuid harva on see päev kui satud artikli otsa Kanadast, mille valgues tunduvad kohalikud afäärid tagasihoidlikult vaoshoitud ja viisakad “juhtumid”.

Selena Ross avaldas Maisonneuve’is hiljuti üllatavaltki valgustava ja julge artikli pealkirjaga Getting Plowed Montreali lumekoristuse hangetest, millele kulutatakse igal aastal ligi 700 miljonit dollarit. Selgub, et Kanada teiseks kõige suuremas linnas (u. 1,6 miljonit elaniku) on korruptsioon ja hangete suunamine koos pakkujate vaheliste kokkulepetega osa kohalikust kultuurist, millega võitlemisest on linnaametnikud juba ammu loobunud. Kokkulepped on laialt levinud ja iseenesest mõistetavad mitte ainult ehitushangete puhul vaid ka lumekoristushangete puhul, kus uutele tulijatele tehakse kas sõnade või tegudega selgeks, millised on mängureeglid:

 If you don’t play by the industry’s internal rules, brace yourself for violence and equipment destruction, said veteran contractors from small- to mid-sized companies. The former employee of the major snow-removal firm said there are three initial stages of coercion—and, hopefully, no one has to face the fourth.

The first stage is sabotage. Montreal may be the only city in the world where, during bitter underworld wars, enemies have sugared the tanks of each other’s snowplows—a popular tactic in the nineties, according to one east-end company owner. The windows of entire lots of loaders, graders and other trucks have been smashed overnight. Firebombing—the Montreal mafia’s favoured method of destroying cafés and pizzerias—is occasionally extended to snow-removal equipment. In late October, the Montreal Gazette reported, a Molotov cocktail–like device was thrown through the window of a snow-removal company in the city’s northwest. “It’s a rough business—and this is a war that’s been going on for years,” the company owner told the Gazette, noting that, in 2010, someone had torched two of his plows.

If equipment damage doesn’t dissuade competitors, bankruptcy comes next. The big firms have huge profit margins, said the ex-employee of the large contractor, allowing them to chronically underbid smaller, errant companies, shutting them out of contracts in retribution. But damaged property and bankruptcy are still just warnings; ignoring them means risking physical violence. Sources were reluctant to discuss this subject, and no one interviewed admitted to having been badly injured. “The ones that get hurt aren’t going to be the ones who will talk to you,” said the former employee, describing one construction contractor who, in 2009, was beaten “within an inch of his life.” “When something like that happens,” he continued, “you’re going into the corner to lick your wounds and thank God you’re still breathing.” Another man described how a competitor had threatened him, slicing his finger across his throat.

Tegu on üllatavaltki põhjaliku artikliga, mis annab hea ettekujutuse sellest, kuidas korruptsioon võib kohalikus kultuuris juurduda tasemel, kus selle välja juurimine on kui mitte võimatu, siis vähemalt äärmiselt keeruline.

Ilmselt ei üllata kedagi korruptsioon Hiinas, kuid kõik märgid viitavad sellele, et üks kõige korrumpeerunumaid osasid Hiina ühiskonnast on sõjavägi. John Garnaut kirjutas hiljuti Hiina sõjaväelaste korruptsioonilembelisusest Foregin Policy’s:

Outsiders can glimpse the enormous flow of military bribes and favours in luxury cars with military license plates on Changan Avenue, Beijing’s main east-west thoroughfare, and parked around upmarket night clubs near the Workers’ Stadium. Business people gravitate toward PLA officers because of the access and protection they bring. PLA veterans told me they are organising “rights protection” movements to protest their inadequate pensions, which they contrast with the luxury lifestyles they observe among serving officers. Retired officers have told me that promotions have become so valuable that it has become routine to pay the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to even be considered for many senior positions.

The February address, the second and most detailed of Liu’s corruption speeches, suggests the problems run much deeper than anecdotal evidence suggests. “Certain individuals exchange public money, public goods, public office and public affairs for personal gain, flouting the law and party codes of conduct, even resorting to verbal abuse and threats, clandestine plots and set ups,” he said. “They physically attack loyal and upstanding officials, kidnap and blackmail party leaders, and drag in their superiors to act as human shields. They deploy all of the tricks of the mafia trade within the army itself.” The way Liu describes it, the web of military cliques, factions, and internal knots of organized crime sounds more like the workings of warlord armies before the communist revolution than the rapidly modernizing force that is currently rattling China’s neighbors.

Jääb üle ainult tõdeda, et nii mõnegi teise riigiga võrreldes ei ole lood korruptsiooniga Eestis sugugi nii halvad kui esmapilgul võib näida.


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