Entrepreneurship at city hall

A survey of Final Word readers by Donath-Burson-Marsteller, Factum Invenio and the Academy of Sciences found that 62% of respondents associate corruption the most with ČSSD, while 30% give the dubious honor to ODS. In all, ČSSD and ODS won 92% of the vote. What do you get when you put ČSSD and ODS together? Prague city hall. Ex-Mayor Jan Kasl told F1 radio this week that the kickback to city officials is still 2-3%, which amounts to tens of millions of crowns per year. It's a sort of "tithe" paid by real-estate developers, he said. (He also stressed that there are many honest developers.) Our survey found that politicians and managers agree that corruption is a result of the high degree of bureaucracy in the country. Kasl noted that some Prague officials create artificial problems so that they can charge a bribe for eliminating them. Call them resourceful entrepreneurs.