There is a lack of a long-term vision for reducing corruption in Latvia

Thirdly, there should be a clear division of responsibilities at the branch level – which is the responsible institution that evaluates the risks of corruption. At the moment, the institutions see it more as the responsibility of KNAB, while KNAB expects the institutions to do it themselves, the think tank says.

The action plan for preventing and combating corruption for 2023-2025 also does not include measures that are addressed in other documents, action plans, especially with regard to issues of combating corruption, partly also other issues. Each of these documents has its own period of operation, evaluation of their execution, distribution of responsibilities between institutions, but it is not clear whether anyone is monitoring the overall picture of whether Latvia’s anti-corruption policy is planned and moving towards systemic improvements, says “Providus”.

Evaluating the mitigation of corruption risks in public procurement, it was concluded that the plan only minimally addresses this issue, but relies more on the action plan for improving the public procurement system.

On the other hand, this action plan does not have a clear monitoring mechanism for its implementation, that is, whether someone and in what time frame will evaluate whether its measures have improved the situation. As a result, the situation is forming that this area essentially remains completely “unlooked after”.

Such supervision is not provided by the Cabinet of Ministers or the Saeima. Therefore, political supervision of the implementation of anti-corruption policy plans is generally very weak or does not take place at all, “Providus” experts concluded.

At the beginning of the year, Inese Tauriņa, the director of the association “Society for openness – Delna” (“Delna”), announced that the action plan of the government led by Prime Minister Evikas Silina (JV) does not contain any measure for a breakthrough in the fight against corruption.

In the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (KPI) published by the international anti-corruption organization “Transparency International” (TI), Latvia’s index has improved compared to the previous two years, however, the rate of growth is slow, and Latvia still lags behind other European Union (EU) and European Cooperation and Organization for Development countries (OECD).

Compared to 2021 and 2022, Latvia’s KUI index for 2023 has improved by one point, reaching 60 points out of 100. Thus, Latvia’s KUI index ranks 14th among 27 EU countries, sharing it with Spain. That’s technically up one spot from last year. However, the average KUI indicator of EU countries is higher – 64 points.