The Institute for Ethics and Economic Policy (IEEP)

 

Fordham University is a renowned Jesuit institution with over 165-year history of emphasis on ethics.

 

To promote Governance with Respect Ethics Accountability and Transparency (GREAT)

 

ESTONIA

 

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Transparency International’s corruption rank for this country in 2000=27, corruption perception index =5.7

 

TALLINN: ESTONIAN GOVERNMENT HAILED ON PARTY FUNDING: - The Estonian Newspaper Postimees has hailed government’s plan to allocate more funds to parties, saying it will increase transparency and reduce corruption. The new Estonian government coalition's plan is to allocate more money to parties from state budget and ban company donations. In its editorial on April 4, 2003, Postimees said the amount spent on election campaigns is shocking with the Centre party spending US$1.4m and issued bonds to the tune of US$0.7m before the Riikikogu (parliamentary) elections. The paper said, in presenting their ideas, parties find themselves in an unfair situation. Reason being that the legislator has not regulated the system of party funding adequately or has deliberately left it open to interpretation, which varies. Postimees reported that Estonian parties spent 60m kroons (US$4m), on election campaign before the March 2, parliamentary elections. Source BBC  07 Apr 2003, Summarized by Davis Joseph Weddi (Stockholm, Sweden).

 

See Link to Eastern Europe

 

PUBLIC OFFICIALS SALARIES ON THE INTERNET FOR ALL TO SEE    A decree signed into law by Siim Kallas, Finance Minister, now requires the salary of approximately 100,000 public officials to be posted on the Internet for public perusal.  Gunnar Okk, a top official of Estonian Energy, earned 20 times the national average and Vahur Kraft, Estonian national bank manager, has a salary of $1,610-$2,300 last year, but his annual income was registered as $77,933.  The national average income is $330 per month and one official stated, ‘He gets five times as much money as I and the only thing he does is sign papers that were prepared by me’.  Currently, only only two other countries - Sweden and Hungary, require the publication of official salaries.    (Transitions on Line, Apr 2-8, 2001, summary by Marg Reynolds).

 

Mrs. Kristel Siitam, at Tallinn City Prosecutor's Office deals with corruption cases. E-mail:

kristel.siitam@lprok.ee.

 

The Index of Economic Freedom (by Driscoll-Holmes-Kirkpatrick) for 2001 places Estonia in the “Mostly Free” category with a rank of 17 (Ranks range from 1 for Hong Kong to 155 for North Korea, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 1, 2000). H. D. Vinod’s trimmed correlation analysis indicates that countries free from economic regulation are less corrupt. After allowing for some exceptions by 20% trimming, the correlation is near 0.9.

 

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Copyright: Hrishikesh D. Vinod 2000
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Last Updated:
7 February 2007