Corruption is costing you €1,671 every year

Corruption is costing each Maltese citizen €1,671 every year, according to figures in a report on the costs of corruption in EU Member States released by the Greens/European Free Alliance group.

The figures suggest that over €725 million or 8.65% of GDP is lost each year in Malta due to corruption, enough to give 42,900 people an average wage.

According to the report, which deals with every EU country separately, the striking figure of €725 million annually lost to corruption in Malta is more than 20 times the budget for the unemployed (€36 million). It is also almost the entire budget for the elderly (€735 million).

The report was released in Malta by Alternattiva Demokratika.

Using the most recent data and studies available, this document compares the costs of corruption to public investment in education, healthcare, childcare and housing, elderly care, or policing and fire services. The aim is to raise public awareness about the cost of corruption across the EU by giving tangible examples of what this could mean for the average person, and to call for a substantial increase in the fight against corruption by the European Union institutions.

“Corruption and abuse of power are not new phenomena in Europe,” says the report, “but the lack of ambition from the EU institutions to address corruption is now arguably emboldening some governments, propped up in some cases by EU funds, to increase their attacks on the rule of law or to consolidate their autocratic regimes.”

Comparative figures

The €725 million annually lost to corruption in Malta is enough to give roughly 42,900 people in the country (over 9% of the population) the average annual Maltese wage (€16,924 net in 2015; Malta’s unemployment rate was 3% in April 2018).

This figure is more than 10 times the size of the policing budget (€67 million) and more than 90 times the total amount spent on the fire service (€8 million), says the report. The figures appear to show that Malta loses more money to corruption than the entire amount spent on education (total €510 million). It is over 45 times bigger than the entire housing budget (€16 million), over seven times the national budget for family and children (€102 million) and almost seven times the entire sickness and disability budget (almost €108 million).

A 2017 Eurostat survey found that 54% of respondents in Malta believed that the level of corruption had worsened in the preceding 3 years, while 23% believed the level had remained the same. Only 11% believed the level of corruption had decreased.

79% believe corruption is widespread in the country and 66% believe corruption is part of the business culture of the country. 10% of respondents personally know someone who takes or has taken bribes. 83% of respondents deem corruption unacceptable.

EU-wide phenomenon

The Greens’ latest estimates regarding the cost of corruption across the EU put the loss to GDP as a result somewhere near €904 billion each year. This includes the indirect effects of corruption, such as loss in tax revenues and decreased foreign investment.

However, corruption and its costs are often hard to grasp for the ordinary citizen, says the report “who still suffers the consequences of a lack of investment in essential public services, an unfair business environment and an abusive and reckless elite.”

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