Friday, May 16, 2014

NPR - Corruption in Ukraine

I head an story on NPR titled, "Corruption In Ukraine Robs HIV Patients Of Crucial Medicine" in which Ari Shapiro states, 
I recently took a Ukrainian taxi from the airport to my hotel. The fare should have been $20. The cab driver was adamant that I pay $30. When I finally paid him $30, the driver gave me a receipt with a wink. He'd made it out for $40.
The driver got a cut by overcharging me, and assumed that I would take a cut by overcharging NPR (which I did not).
In Ukraine, corruption is a daily fact of life. It reaches into big business, law enforcement, education and even the smallest transactions between people on the street.

Now many people may view this as an example of how corrupt the rest of the world is compared to the United States. However, I have been on business trips where the taxi driver handed me a couple blank receipts along with the real one. This is common in a number of cities. In many localities our taxi drivers are just as corrupt as the Ukrainian ones. And in many industries such as the $50 billion divorce one, we rank among the most corrupt in the world. 

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