Unfortunately Greece has once again featured high in a negative list: the EU Commission's report on corruption , both perceived and actual. This BBC map shows how widespread the problem is, but it is most evident in Greece, 99% according to this interactive visual..
As in most languages, Greek has evolved various euphemisms for the practice of bribery, depending on size and context. Here are just a few: fakellaki, 'little envelope', given to doctors in public hospitals for doing their job properly, or for bumping a patient up a waiting list for an operation; grigorosimo, 'fast stamp', paid to civil servants to speed up applications for various services such as getting a building licence or processing a pension claim, miza, 'kickback', (literally the ignition on a car), handed to politicians or people in power such as heads of hospitals to induce them to choose one particular supplier over another for lucrative contracts.
Of course any such money paid over is not declared for taxation, adding to the problem of insufficient revenue to cover the country's needs. Famously one politician is now in prison for kickbacks for a military contract. There have also been a few cases of doctors being caught receiving marked bills when patients went to the police after the doctor demanded extra payment for his services. According to this 2010 article in Greek, 39% of patients hospitalised in the public health system have given a little envelope, 19% of doctors outright ask for an extra fee for performing operations, which can reach EUR 3,000 to 6,000 for heart surgery. 17% of patients report giving a fakellaki to thank their doctors for services rendered (probably because they feel it is expected). Waiting lists (link in Greek) for appointments at public hospitals range from two to six months. For operations the waiting list can reach one year. One patient died on 3rd January 2014 (link in Greek) while waiting his turn on the waiting list. He was unemployed and uninsured, so he was waiting for free treatment in a public hospital. Obviously he could not afford the fakellaki that might have bumped him up to the top of the waiting list.
I have two personal experiences. Without my knowing about this at the time, when I took my driving test about 15 years ago my driving instructor told my husband that most people were automatically failed on their first attempt unless they "bought a coffee" for the examiners, which cost about the same as the retake fee would have been. My husband paid. Also, when tax auditors came to his business some years ago, they brazenly told him that they could camp in his office for days and would be sure to find some violation on some technicality, no matter how well his books were kept, or he could pay them X sum of money and instantly get a clean audit. Again he paid.
There is a website called 'I gave a fakelaki' (in Greek) where citizens can report their experiences with bribes. To be fair, this phenomenon is by no means exclusive to Greece. One word in use in English is baksheesh, which is of Persian origin.
There is some hope. After an investigation into his overseas bank accounts a former Greek government official has admitted taking bribes, again for a defence contract, and has actually returned some of this money. The government has earmarked this for Health and Education. There are now proposals of offering incentives such as amnesty from prison to anyone else coming forward voluntarily to return bribes, provided this is done before they are the focus of an investigation.
In Greek there is a saying, 'the fish stinks from the head'. When ordinary citizens see politicians, officials, civil servants and doctors getting away with corruption on such a large scale for years, they find it easy to justify any small irregularities of their own. Now the first few big fish have been caught. Most people believe this is just the tip of the iceberg. Let us hope that these investigations continue to cleanse the system from the top down, and that all these bribes are returned to public coffers. They might well be enough to pay off Greece's debt!
As in most languages, Greek has evolved various euphemisms for the practice of bribery, depending on size and context. Here are just a few: fakellaki, 'little envelope', given to doctors in public hospitals for doing their job properly, or for bumping a patient up a waiting list for an operation; grigorosimo, 'fast stamp', paid to civil servants to speed up applications for various services such as getting a building licence or processing a pension claim, miza, 'kickback', (literally the ignition on a car), handed to politicians or people in power such as heads of hospitals to induce them to choose one particular supplier over another for lucrative contracts.
Of course any such money paid over is not declared for taxation, adding to the problem of insufficient revenue to cover the country's needs. Famously one politician is now in prison for kickbacks for a military contract. There have also been a few cases of doctors being caught receiving marked bills when patients went to the police after the doctor demanded extra payment for his services. According to this 2010 article in Greek, 39% of patients hospitalised in the public health system have given a little envelope, 19% of doctors outright ask for an extra fee for performing operations, which can reach EUR 3,000 to 6,000 for heart surgery. 17% of patients report giving a fakellaki to thank their doctors for services rendered (probably because they feel it is expected). Waiting lists (link in Greek) for appointments at public hospitals range from two to six months. For operations the waiting list can reach one year. One patient died on 3rd January 2014 (link in Greek) while waiting his turn on the waiting list. He was unemployed and uninsured, so he was waiting for free treatment in a public hospital. Obviously he could not afford the fakellaki that might have bumped him up to the top of the waiting list.
I have two personal experiences. Without my knowing about this at the time, when I took my driving test about 15 years ago my driving instructor told my husband that most people were automatically failed on their first attempt unless they "bought a coffee" for the examiners, which cost about the same as the retake fee would have been. My husband paid. Also, when tax auditors came to his business some years ago, they brazenly told him that they could camp in his office for days and would be sure to find some violation on some technicality, no matter how well his books were kept, or he could pay them X sum of money and instantly get a clean audit. Again he paid.
There is a website called 'I gave a fakelaki' (in Greek) where citizens can report their experiences with bribes. To be fair, this phenomenon is by no means exclusive to Greece. One word in use in English is baksheesh, which is of Persian origin.
There is some hope. After an investigation into his overseas bank accounts a former Greek government official has admitted taking bribes, again for a defence contract, and has actually returned some of this money. The government has earmarked this for Health and Education. There are now proposals of offering incentives such as amnesty from prison to anyone else coming forward voluntarily to return bribes, provided this is done before they are the focus of an investigation.
In Greek there is a saying, 'the fish stinks from the head'. When ordinary citizens see politicians, officials, civil servants and doctors getting away with corruption on such a large scale for years, they find it easy to justify any small irregularities of their own. Now the first few big fish have been caught. Most people believe this is just the tip of the iceberg. Let us hope that these investigations continue to cleanse the system from the top down, and that all these bribes are returned to public coffers. They might well be enough to pay off Greece's debt!
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