MOSCOW, March 22 (Itar-Tass) —— It will take years and changes in people’s mentality to uproot corruption in Russian, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday.
“I had no doubts that this problem cannot be dramatically minimized in just a few years,” he said at a meeting in the Open Government format that was dedicated to anti-corruption efforts. At the same time, he stressed that “these years have not been wasted.”
“Regrettably, people’s mentality changes very slowly,” the president said. In his words, corruption is a process that involves both a bribe-taker and a briber. “And for some unknown reason it is beyond comprehension of many. It is a mistake from both the legal and moral points of view,” he noted.
Among the recent anti-corruption measures Medvedev listed obligatory declaration of income and property imposed on state servants. According to Medvedev, as many as 1.2 million people are now liable to declare their income. About 23,000 cases of falsified income declaration were registered last year. “Some people were fired,” he said.
“People, who declare their income, must realize that they are not likely to be jailed but they might be fired and thus they will have to live in a different way,” he added.