[keerthi]

I believe if there is a public uprising against the government and the authorities, they will be forced to answer these issues. Wikileaks faclites this by publishing the documents through all types of medium which cannot be censored by the government. As a citizen you can also contribute by spreading it more and more.. My best bet would be to spread it in schools and colleges as they seem to be fearless lot. An uprising is what we need.

[radu_floricica]

I'm Romanian. We're not as bad as Mexic, in the sense we don't have drug lords and piles of bodies, but we definitely don't lose in corruption.

I've spent not a little time thinking about what can be done. I know the problem (pretty much everybody knows the problem) - politicians suck. They're either corrupt and incompetent, or just corrupt. Problem is, we really really don't have any alternatives. There is absolutely no party, not even a small youth one that's not the same. We can barely trust non-political watchdog organizations - hell, after the last elections we don't really trust them either.

The media is... ok. Private for the most part, and so heavily politicized (yes, it makes sense here), but they don't pull punches when it comes to criticizing the government. They're pretty open with both obvious mistakes and obvious cases of corruption - but the problem is, nothing ever comes out of it.

In a working democracy this would be a case for the justice system. Well, we have two problems. First, the whole system is also corrupt as hell. Second, it's also (probably on purpose) extremely inefficient. All the reforms in the past years, including a ridiculously publicized new constitution a few years back only made things worse.

So yes, I know what we need. We need:

   * to respect the now largely ignored law saying that public institutions, education and health are non-politic;
   * justice system reform
   * new and fresh options for the next elections
   * untainted public organizations

It's no mystery, really. The only problem is... how do we do it? It it my personal conviction that solving this chicken and egg problem is the next greatest challenge. A generic solution would be extremely useful for most developing countries, i.e. half the world right now.

[thisisananth]

In India for example, I think everyone pays a bribe to get a passport. If we don't, then passport will be stuck somewhere for months and months without coming out. Even for knowing why it is not getting processed, you have to pay bribe. So finally, everyone has stopped questioning and started giving money to agents to get the things done.

The problem is no one is responsible if the citizen is not getting the promised services. We cannot see the status about why it is pending online, we don't know whom to contact online, no helpdesks. You just have to go to the office and wait and wait for turn only to be turned away without even getting a chance to speak.

If one person is made responsible for citizen satisfaction for services and he is like the manager in the office whose compensation is dependent on the rating the citizen gives for the services, then I think this will change.

How to make government officials answerable to the people? This is difficult, because a government is voted for a period of 5 yrs into power and they have 5 yrs to loot without doing anything and then bribe their way into power again. If this vicious cycle can be broken by clear communication about the government performance, so clear that people can't ignore, then they may vote for another government which is not much better than this. But by consistently projecting these metrics about corruption and government performance, we might give a chance for some party to fight on the plank of eliminating corruption.

Long answer.. hopefully there is some juice in it.

[pessimizer]

I saw a great film that came out this year called Kapitalism: Our Improved Formula that paints an really dire picture of the current state of Romanian corruption, and if any country has had a public uprising against the state of their government, Romania qualifies.

[iwwr]

Instead of more laws, tougher rules or oversight authorities, it may be worthwhile to just reduce the number of regulations, papers, fees, approvals, stamps or 'adeverințe' needed to function. Tougher rules won't work when the rulers are inherently corrupt; rules are the very thing that justify their power.