<p>In this issue:<br /><br />You have the latest issue of the Anti-Corruption newsletter (MAK). First of all we wish to thank to all of those who responded to our poll by which we wish to hear how satisfied you are with our newsletter and collect your proposals, suggestions for its further development. We are also reminding and kindly asking those who failed to respond, to do that as soon as possible, as your opinions are of vital importance for an improvement of our performance. We shall present your proposals and suggestions in the next issue. We are now carefully reviewing your ideas to be able to immediately apply them in the next issues’ articles.<br /><br />In this issue we are presenting two similar cases for fining corruption acts in two countries in different part of the world that have different social structure and believes. The United States and China have punished prominent citizens for their involvement in corruption activities. In both countries, the penalties are considered to be a message to the societies about the hard stand of the authorities against the crime. In neighboring Greece, after a series of mass, violent protests, the government had to promise it would cleanse up the corruption in politics and restore public trust.<br /><br />Our associate, anti-corruption expert Mihajlova, writes about the need of larger transparency of the budget, as a crucial instrument for participation of citizens and democratic control of the procedure for approving the budget and spending the funds. In this regard the experiences of two countries form different parts of the world also show that the calls for open budget substantially reduce the corruption and enhance the accountability of public servants.<br /><br />Furthermore, experts in criminal law analyze a new incrimination of the Criminal Code on abusing the public call for granting a contract on public purchase, which is foreseen to become a serious punitive act that requires harsh penalty, as it is an attack not only on certain individuals, but also on the social community.<br /><br />This issue also tackles the bribe many international companies have been paying as a price to run business in certain countries. After several large corruption scandals, now the very same international companies are opposing any form of bribe.<br /><br />We hope that the contents of this issue will offer you more detailed information on the principles of honest, responsible performing and serve to all of us as a guideline in our own work.<br /><br /><a href="../images/stories/mak_br5_ang_final.pdf">The fifth MAK issue can be found here</a></p>