With financial help from the Global Opportunities Fund – Reuniting Europe Program, administered by the British Embassy in Romania we aimed at identifying and eliminating some of the bureaucratic barriers at customs that lead to corruption. Our hypothesis is that bad laws leads to bad administration. Unlike other approaches to corruption that simply focus on imposing higher penalties we focused on the causes of corruption. We indicated that simplifying and clarifying legislation can diminish corruption by eliminating the incentives faced by firms to bribe civil servants.

We first secured the cooperation of the National Customs Authority (NCA) and the Alliance for the Economic Development of Romania in order to elaborate an Action Plan for preventing and fighting corruption in the Romanian customs sector, based on surveys among both customs civil servants and private companies with import/export operations representatives.

We then organized meetings between NCA officials and business associations’ representatives in order to address both parties’ problems.

A survey was conducted on companies with activities involving customs procedures, and another among customs officers. Part of our efforts materialized in a Policy Plan to decrease corruption in the Romanian customs administration.