Compared with more developed countries, Latvian business leaders admit there is a higher degree of corruption in the country’s economic environment.

55% of Latvian business leaders agree that there is wide-spread corruption in the country. Only 35% in more developed countries agree with this statement in their home country, as mentioned in the latest survey by EY «Fraud and Corruption – the easy option for growth?»

At the same time, Latvian business leaders admit that financial accounting, transparency and accuracy is on a high level in Latvia.

The EY survey, in which a total of 3,800 employees of different companies in 38 countries of the world were interviewed, shows that 55% of Latvian entrepreneurs consider bribery an especially common form of corruption in Latvia, which is only slightly better than the situation in Russia (60%) and significantly worse than the situation in France (29%), Germany (26%), Estonia (21%), Sweden (10%) and Denmark (4%). The largest number of respondents in Europe who believe corruption to be especially common in their home country is found in Croatia (92%) and Slovenia (87%).

«The survey results show that corruption prevention culture has not developed equally in Latvia – financial accounting practice is on a good level, which can be explained with intensive work done by state institutions, entrepreneurs and audit industry specialists. Corruption and fraud prevention, on the other hand, lags behind. Latvian entrepreneurs require more and better corruption prevention policies which should be backed by actions of state institutions responsible for corruption prevention. It will help introduce more equal rules of competition for honest entrepreneurs,» – says Diana Krisjane, EY partners in Baltics.

It is concluded in the survey that many companies in the world do not even have the simplest of mechanisms for preventing corruption. For example, 42% of respondents admitted not having a corruption prevention policy in their company. The situation in Latvia is even worse – 55% companies do not have a corruption prevention policy, which is slightly worse than the average result in Eastern Europe (51%). In addition to that, only 39% of Latvian business leaders admit the higher-ups in their company have made their intentions to combat corruption clear. This is worse than the average index in Eastern Europe – 42%.

«Leadership and management play a crucial role in companies’ corruption prevention activities. Unfortunately, we see that only 42% of respondents in Latvia agree that higher-ups of enterprises in the country actively stick to high ethical standards in their business activities, which is below that of Germany (55%) or Estonia (53%). The preparedness of business leaders to combat corruption is one of the main factors that contributes to the reduction of Latvia’s level of corruption,» – adds Krisjane.

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