Bus 1050

My Renaissance
Michael Fiser
Richard Lambert
11/30/2015

Corruption in the Czech Republic

Corruption is a very big problem around the world and

everywhere around us in our society. I would like to focus on the
corruption in the Czech Republic so we are able to see it from a
different perspective of a view. Corruption was at its largest in the
Czech Republic when the Soviet Union left the country in 1989.

At that time, anything was possible. The people, businessmen,

and entrepreneurs, every type of business was involved in some kind
of illegal activity. For an example right after the Soviet Union left, there
werent enough imports and exports related to my country. There were
many different things that couldnt get in the stores.
These people that were called traders would go to a different
country or contact someone over there through some other people. Of
course, they need it to be paid or bribed for that. Say the whole Czech
market would be missing vodka. They will contact the people in the

other countries that would load up a semi truck full of Vodka and they
will go cross the border. For that, they already had to contact some
people to bribe the person on the borders, which cost others their
money. When they will get to Czech they would exchange the truck full
of the product for money and call the store to go unloaded the stuff.
The next day before noon, they would be sold out. Thats how crazy
the market was there and how many opportunities people had. Also,
that was the time when everyone learned how to bribe people and who
exactly to pay off. That was the start of the biggest corruption in the
Czech republic. People just had to know the right people to pay the
money too. To get all the permits and paper work that was needed,
people had to go through the people in politics who didn't do anything
for free. People who need those things had to pay them money. The
Czech mafia got really big at that time and they are still controlling lot
of markets today.
Many entrepreneurs have a difficult time to start a new business.
Why? The answer is because there is corruption everywhere. Some
people just don't see it anymore. The highest positions in corruption
are still in the politics of the country and the Mafia.
As we all know, this is going on everywhere around the world.
The difference is that Czechs problem is that it is a small country
dealing with corruption. Important people know almost everything
about each other. If the people want to be an honest and a good

entrepreneur, they will have a really hard time to start your won
business. In each city there is a member of the mafia who runs the city
or a big company. For an example, if they would like to start a building
company in one of the towns, there is probably a big building company
that controls the whole market in the Czech republic. This big company
is getting work from the government to build new roads and all this
kind of stuff. Businessmen cant start a building company without
getting the company permission to get started as a private small
company. The company would let the entrepreneur start but they
would have to pay them first.
20 years ago nobody cared how the people are getting this
money from other people. At that time, an entrepreneur would just
walk in to the person office with an envelope full of cash. Thats how it
worked. Now the police and special departments are mostly monitoring
them. The company has a very clean process of letting the
entrepreneur pay them money. The big building company owns an icehockey team. The other small business has to pay the price to stay
operable or to be able to start the hockey team. Its a donation
method. Nobody would ever think that these small businesses are
donating money, like a method of payment and corrupting the people.
If people look at it that way now, in the Czech Republic, it is
really hard to start a new business with out corruption. If the
entrepreneur is an honest businessman or a new person who is starting

a business, it doesn't matter in which category that would be in. There

isnt a real chance of them be able to start or even stay in the business
with out paying some people off. That's how it works in the Czech
republic right now and it has been like that for a several years. If the
entrepreneur would be able to start a new business without paying
money to someone, which would be very hard, the entrepreneur would
still need to pay some people off at the city hall to get a new
construction project. Even if the entrepreneur is in a different business,
they will still have to pay some one at city hall to get what they need.
Honest, small businessmen can usually not get far without
corrupting other people. All the permits and other stuff that an
entrepreneur would need for the business is going through the city
hall. The only way to get everything that is needed for the business is
to give money to somebody. There will always be someone above them
in the business that they are in, there is a part of the mafia in every
town and if the company wont pay, they will come find the
entrepreneur and explain to him how it works.
The entirety of politics isnt corrupt anymore, however. There are
rich and powerful people who are trying to shut down this business of
corrupting people. That surprised me, as I didnt know about it. I found
that while I was doing my research. These rich people are in the
government to help the Czech society. Because they know how badly
the country is corrupt. The other politician has a big salary every year

but they always want more money then they already have. They are
letting them self get bribed. These rich people have so much money
that they dont care about what they will make in the government. One
of them founded a new police organization. That organization is just
focusing on corruption in politics and other police departments. They
are working on the corruption to get it smaller than it is now. And make
everything much more legal. Because of that the new entrepreneurs
might finally get the opportunity to start business without bribing some
important people off.

Sources :

1)

Tom Othal, Vvoj korupce v R v obdob transformace,

http://is.muni.cz/do/1456/soubory/oddeleni/centrum/papers/wp20
06-14.pdf

2)

National Geographic, Djiny korupce a platkstv: nejhor

skandly v historii, January 13, 2014
http://www.national-geographic.cz/clanky/dejiny-korupce-auplatkarstvi-nejhorsi-skandaly-v-historii.html#.VcQ6euvfhBk

3)

Zprva o korupci v R a o monostech innho postupu proti

tomuto negativnmu spoleenskmu jevu,
http://www.comrad.cz/item110a.htm