Corruption in Georgia

The fact that Georgia has been making a progress in developing is no news anymore. It holds leading positions in the lists of countries that have shown the most improvement in recent years. One of the key changes that had a huge impact on this progress were measures taken against corruption. Starting with police reform, education, health care and so on, Georgian government managed to get rid of rotten system, firing old staff and hiring new without "bad habits". As a result, from my point of view as a citizen, there is no corruption at the civil level. Although ordinary citizens don't face corruption in their daily life anymore, the so called elite corruption, involving mysterious deals, still exist at a higher level.

According to the Corruption Perception Index 2010, released on October 26 by Transparency International, Georgia ranks 68th out of 178 countries around the world. It's CPI score on a scale from 10(clean) to 0(corrupt) is 3.8.

What is the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI)?
"The CPI ranks countries/territories based on how corrupt a country’s public sector is perceived to be. It is a composite index, a combination of polls, drawing on corruption-related data from expert and business surveys carried out by a variety of independent and reputable institutions. The CPI reflects views from around the world, including those of experts living and working in the countries/territories evaluated."

It is also interesting to compare Georgia's rate with its neighbors. Turkey with a better condition ranks 56th with the score of 4.4, Armenia(2.6) is 123rd, Azerbaijan (2.4) is 134th, Russia (2.1) is 154th. Georgia even managed to show better results than some European countries, coming right after Italy which is 67th scoring 3.9, Georgia is ahead of Romania (69; 3.7) Bulgaria (73rd; 3.6) and Greece (78th; 3.5).

Nowadays, according to Georgian Legislation the punishment for receiving a bribe counts from 6 to 9 years of imprisonment and in case of extortion it can reach 11-15 years of prison. Not you only can be charged for receiving price incentives, but also for giving them. The punishment can vary from 2 and 5-8 years of prison or fine depending on the conditions of the crime.