Corruption in 2024 considered serious problem by 79.4% of Ukraine's population, 76% of business reps
Corruption is consistently among the top three most pressing problems, in 2024 it took second place, yielding to the Russian armed aggression against Ukraine, but it is considered a very serious obstacle by 79.4% of the population and 76% of business representatives, these are the results of the sixth wave of a nationwide study on a comprehensive assessment of the corruption situation in Ukraine, published by the Info Sapiens agency.
The survey results note that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian citizens and business representatives have a negative attitude towards corruption.
"Despite the critical assessment by respondents of the results of the fight against corruption in Ukraine, the share of those who actually had corruption experience in 2024 has not changed significantly since last year. It is also worth noting that since the second year since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, business representatives have encountered corruption somewhat more often than the population," the agency said.
According to the population survey, in 2024, corruption remained in second place among the main problems, the list of which was offered to respondents (in 2022, corruption was in third place, and in 2023 it rose to second). In addition, the relevance of corruption as a problem has increased.
It is noted that in 2024, corruption was called a very serious problem by 79.4% of citizens, which is 7.8 percentage points more than the same indicator in 2023. Thus, the assessment of the seriousness of corruption has statistically significantly increased for the second period in a row (2023 and 2024). In 2024, this indicator reached its highest value since 2021.
In the business environment, the assessment of corruption as a problem has also increased significantly and continues to occupy second place in the overall rating. Some 76.0% of representatives of business entities in Ukraine consider corruption to be a very serious problem (3 percentage points more than in 2023).
Both among the general public and among business representatives, the perception of the prevalence of corruption in Ukraine has worsened. 91.4% of the population believe that corruption is somewhat or very widespread (30.2% and 61.2% of respondents, respectively), which is 3.5 percentage points more than in 2023. At the same time, the share of respondents who believe that corruption in Ukraine is very widespread has increased (by 6.2 percentage points) to 61.2% (43.9% and 55% in 2022-2023, respectively). This indicator has reached its maximum value since 2021.
In addition, 83.1% of business representatives believe that corruption is somewhat or very widespread in Ukraine (25.9% and 57.2% of respondents, respectively), which is 1.8 percentage points more than in 2023.
The overall indices of perception of the prevalence of corruption on a five-point scale continued to grow, which began in 2023. The value of the indices in 2024 reached 4.52 points for the population (compared to 4.44 points in 2023) and 4.39 points for business (in 2023 some 4.29 points).
The population traditionally attributed the judicial system (4.49), customs (4.40) and border control (4.26) to the areas with the highest level of prevalence of corruption. "The order of the most corrupt spheres, according to the population, remains unchanged for the fourth year in a row, which is a reflection of the public demand for anti-corruption actions in these spheres," Info Sapiens said.
From a business perspective, corruption is most widespread in customs (4.47), as well as in the areas of permitting and mining (4.45), and public procurement of works and services for the construction, repair and maintenance of roads (4.42).
As reported in the Transparency International study, the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) in Ukraine decreased by one point and is 35 points out of 100 possible in 2024, and in the country ranking it dropped from 104 to 105 place.