Press release: Public conference organised by Monica Macovei on the costs of coruption in public procurement

Monica Macovei, Member of the European Parliament, together with Manfred Weber, MEP and Mariya Gabriel, MEP organised today the hearing „Public Procurement: costs we pay for corruption” to launch the study ” Identifying and Reducing Corruption in Public Procurement in the EU”. The study was commissioned by the European Commission represented by the European Anti-Fraud Office, based upon a pilot project budgeted by the European Parliament following the initiative of a number of Members of the Group of the European People’s Party in the European Parliament.

This is the first analytical account of money lost because of corruption in public procurement.

The main objective of the study was to develop methodology and indicators – red flags – to identify and estimate the direct costs of corruption in public procurement.

Monica Macovei: “ Today we present the study on the costs of corruption, a study completely different than before, which shows you that corruption always costs money. And we are talking about big sums of money, not only the money going from one man’s pocket to another’s man pocket as a bribe, but money from public budgets or European funds or national budgets that are lost due to corruption.

For example, the cost of corruption is the difference between the market price for one highway kilometer and the contract price. If the contract price is 3-5 times higher than the market price, this is due to the corruption of the person who attributed to the company X the contract, and the price difference is the cost of corruption. There are more examples, but this is the real cost of corruption, beyond the sums given as bribe.

The study shows that in 2010, in eight EU member countries (France, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Spain) and five areas – building railways, motorways, health, development, research, training, water, public utilities, waste – direct costs, so direct losses due to corruption, are estimated between 1.4 billion and. 2.2 billion. An average of 1.8 billion euros a year, in 8 Member States in 5 areas.

These figures are more than any other argument against corruption. With the money we could build schools, hospitals, roads, we could increase pensions, wages, invest in education, in health, in research, in us – in people.

Corruption is a cost taken from the pocket of every one of us. Each of us must understand that it is not acceptable to sit back and say „I do not care if X gives Y bribes, it is not my business”. And I say yes, it’s your business, because if X bribes Y to receive a contract at a higher price, it is your money that will pay the higher price instead of contributing to your pension.

Corruption creates a different reality. Corruption at all levels – the mayor’s office, the veterinary authority, the construction/demolishing authority, the government – it creates a double reality, a fake reality and we move away from reality. We create a fiction based on corruption, on crooked decisions due to corruption. My appeal to you is: do not bet on corruption, you won’t win. You will lose money, which means that you will have a decrease in your life quality.

At the public hearing participated Algirdas Šemeta, European Commissioner for Taxation and Customs Union, Stefano Manservisi, Director General of the Directorate of Internal Affairs, representatives of other DGs, OLAF and the OECD. The Lithuanian Presidency was represented by the Vice-Minister of Justice.