As the government tries to right a battered economy and restore some faith in Greece as a good place to do business, it has taken another hit with a finding from the auditing firm Ernst & Young, which surveyed more than 3,500 business managers, who said it’s the fourth most corrupt country in Europe.
Transparency International earlier had given Greece the ignominious dishonor as the number one most corrupt country in the region and the latest report seems certain to hinder attempts to prove business can be done in Greece without paying a laundry list of bribes to everyone involved in transactions, which is still common.
Slovenia topped the list, followed by Croatia and Ukraine. The corruption levels in all the mentioned above four countries were comparable to those in Nigeria and Kenya. As it was indicated by the people questioned, bribery is not in recession during the economic crisis. In Greece the problem of corruption was cited by 84 percent of the people questioned.
The managers who participated to the survey pointed Switzerland as the most honest country in Europe as only 10 percent of the responses referred to corruption incidences in that country.