CORRUPTION: A PROBLEM IN ROMANIAN PUBLIC PROCUREMENT

Even though the relevance of corruption is very high in all fields of activity, the specialized literature in the field of public procurement has paid very little or even no attention to this crucial phenomenon. The field of public procurement presents a high risk of corruption, the evidence being the large number of high-level corruption cases in several Member States of the European Union. The study presents the specialized literature related to corruption in public procurement in the European Union and United States of America, analyzes the level of corruption in public procurement in Romania, the causes that generate corruption and the main measures to combat it. The article also presents the results of a survey realized among the purchasers from Romania which addresses the main elements of corruption in the field of public procurement. The survey analyzes issues related to corruption in public procurement in Romania, such as: level of corruption, control over corruption, frequency of occurrence of corruption acts, procurement procedures most prone to corruption, characteristics of the procurement procedures that favors the occurrence of corruption, most widespread way of manifesting corruption, most important consequence of corruption, percentage of increasing contract costs due to corruption, most effective anti-corruption measure.