Syria Today | The Cancer Within

The Cancer Within

Words Obaida Hamad
Illustration Ali Abdo

The perception of corruption has reached an all time high in Syria. Despite government efforts lead by President Bashar al-Assad to combat corruption, the overwhelming majority of Syrians believe their country’s institutions are inherently corrupt. This was dramatically highlighted in February when the state-owned Al-Thawra newspaper ran a survey which found virtually 100 percent of Syrians believe all government departments are corrupt. The questionnaire covered 452 citizens from eight governorates; 450 said they believe corruption exists “in official or state-run institutions”.

The Al-Thawra survey follows last year’s release of a study by the international anticorruption organisation Transparency International which showed the perception of corruption in Syria has increased sharply over the last three years. The study, which polled the country’s business sector, ranked Syria as the second worst of all countries in the Middle East in terms of perception of corruption. Only war-torn Iraq finished with a lower ranking. Syria also ranked 138 out of 180 countries globally, its worst placement since it was included in the study in 2003. In the 2005 report, Syria ranked 70th globally and eighth out of the 14 Middle East countries surveyed, on a par with Egypt and Saudi Arabia and better than Morocco, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Libya and Iraq.

“Corruption is dangerous because it has become a culture, a way of life for some people and when that happens it can destroy a country,” Abed Fadliah, a professor at Damascus University’s Economics Faculty, said. “Corruption makes a country weaker, not stronger.

Fadliah said the heavy perception of corruption surrounding Syria was hurting the country’s ability to attract foreign direct investment; an important source of revenue in light of declining oil revenues. “Foreign investors are put off coming to Syria because of corruption,” he said. “It’s not just foreign investors.

Syrians with money to invest are taking it abroad because they are concerned about corruption as well.”

In the dark

While the Syrian Government has very few publicly available figures on the volume of corruption – even a definition of exactly what constitutes corruption is hard to come by – numerous economists, politicians and independent analysts have voiced their concerns about this highly sensitive topic.

Qadri Jamil, an economics professor and founder of an illegal communist party that publishes the Qassion newspaper which regularly sheds light on corruption in Syria, estimates corruption accounts for between 20 to 40 percent of Syria’s SYP 1500bn (USD 32.6bn) GDP. This amount is generated via government deals and the exploitation of government resources such as selling subsidised goods on the black market. “Corruption is taking money from the national income, but the process doesn’t return this money,” Jamil said.

Jamil further estimates around 80 percent of all corruption in Syria is large scale, such as bribes (rashwa) paid to government officials to obtain favourable treatment in business dealings or using social or family connections to obtain financial or commercial advantage (wasta). The remaining 20 percent, he estimates, is made up of small-scale corruption such as bribing traffic policemen or low-level state employees to speed up government paperwork.

Tax evasion

Other analysts say widespread tax evasion in Syria should be treated as corruption, particularly as it can involve merchants, traders and businessmen bribing government employees to lower their tax burden.

Syria’s low tax collection was recently highlighted when Finance Minister Mohammad al-Hussein revealed the government loses around SYP 200bn (USD 4.35bn) in uncollected taxes each year. Other economists put the figure as high as SYP 300bn (USD 6.52bn), a staggering figure given the national budget deficit is predicted to come in at SYP 192bn (USD 4.17bn) this year.

“Tax evasion is a major type of corruption in Syria and it amounts to simply stealing from the government and stealing from the people,” Suhail al-Hamdan, director of the independent economic consultancy group, Beit al-Khebrah, said.

Hamdan, who carried out a wide-ranging survey into corruption two years ago that was also published by the Al-Thawra newspaper, said the trend cost Syria “hundreds of billions of Syrian Pounds” every year. “This is money that could be spent on important social services and improving infrastructure, universities and health care,” he said.

Combatting Corruption

Fighting corruption has long been a major pillar of president Assad’s public platform. Indeed, even before coming to power Assad garnered much respect among the general public by leading an anti-corruption drive which resulted in sackings across the country.

“Even before becoming president, Dr Bashar al-Assad was active in identifying corruption as a problem and in trying to stop it,” Elhossein Mohamed, dean of Damascus University’s Faculty of Law and member of the ruling Ba’ath Party, said.

Under Assad’s presidency numerous high-profile purges have taken place such as in March 2007 when 50 officials were sacked for corruption. Forty-four officials were fired from state companies – electricity, tobacco and communications – while nine worked in various other ministries.

Yet despite these initiatives, Assad has admitted not as much progress as he would have liked has been made in the fight against corruption. Speaking at his inaugural address following his 2007 re-election, the president said progress against corruption remains “less than our aspirations”.

“Talking about administrative development leads us to talking about corruption which is the centre of people’s attention in our country, because of its direct and indirect impact on social life and because it turned into an impediment for reform,” Assad said.

He went on to that say a more free media environment – which allows for the public discussion of corruption – had increased the public perception of corruption, despite important steps having being carried out to reduce corruption at the highest levels of government. He noted, however, that the many new economic openings also brought with it new opportunities for corruption to flourish.

Syria’s government faces both domestic and foreign difficulties in combatting corruption. At the domestic level, corruption often takes the form of a well-organised network stretching from low-level employees to high-level officials and powerful businessmen.

“For corruption to exist there must be a harmony between people in power and people with interests and agendas,” Elhossein said “Take out one person at the head of a chain of corruption and you will remove perhaps 15 percent of the corruption in one go.”

More than this, however, internal review procedures within government departments for the checking of corruption remain weak. It’s a problem area identified by Assad. “We still need effective mechanisms to combat corruption,” he said during his inaugural speech. “Punishing corrupt individuals is an important mechanism, but it is not sufficient; that is why administrative development and the wider use of modern technology are complementary mechanisms.”

At the foreign level, heavy international pressure coming primarily from the US has forced the Syrian leadership to focus its attention on Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine over the country’s domestic reform agenda. “The government prefers at this time to confront foreign pressures which has shifted the focus away from corruption,” Hamdan said. “There are key figures that are corrupt, but now is not the time to shift key people out of their positions.”