Inspecting the Inspectors

A rising tide of complaints from the public about Kyrgyzstan’s customs service has prompted the government to set up temporary watchdog to oversee matters, but NBCentralAsia analysts warn that it is unlikely to produce swift or meaningful results.



The decision took the form of a November 21 decree by Kyrgyz prime minister Felix Kulov ordering the creation of a government committee to monitor customs posts.



Sergei Bazhenov, who will head the new body, told NBCentralAsia that it will answer directly to the prime minister, and has been set up in response to complaints about corruption. Its task will be to identify systems most vulnerable to corruption, and the reasons why the phenomenon occurs. The committee will assign teams to customs posts all over Kyrgyzstan, and will prepare a comparative analysis of the customs service’s performance over the last three years and present it to the government.



However, economic commentators and some state officials argue that this attempt to establish a watchdog is not going to reduce corruption at customs control points.



Nariman Tuleev, director general of the national rail company, believes the measure will make a hole in government revenues due to loss of customs income, because freight traffic will grind to a halt every time there is an inspection.



Nor will the watchdog itself be immune to the problem it is supposed to address, he said, explaining, “Like any committee given powers to monitor a [government] agency, it will definitely become corrupted.”



The committee denies this will happen. “The [committee] headquarters is a temporary body, so it is incorruptible,” said Bazhenov.



Sapar Orozbakov, the director of the Bishkek Centre for Economic Analysis, says that various committees are being set up merely for show.



“The committee will definitely not uncover systemic corruption in the customs service,” Orozbakov told NBCentralAsia. “The customs system is the most corrupt of all, especially in a small country like Kyrgyzstan with a high proportion of imports.”



That view is shared by Jetigen Bakirov, who is in charge of strategic development and evaluation in the presidential administration. He would prescribe different methods of combating graft among customs officers.



“What is needed is legislation,” he said. “If you want to fight corruption, do it via mechanisms based on economic principles and the market.” These mechanism could take the form of new legislation that seeks to minimise opportunities for corrupt systems to emerge, by eliminating the human factor as far as possible, he said.



Orozbakov said another productive measure would be to slash value-added tax on goods, but he accepted that this would be difficult to implement because customs returns account for the bulk of government revenues.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)