Samenvatting

The Belgian Customs Administration has taken the lead on the federal level to elaborate an anti-corruption policy. Up till now the initiatives of the administration D&A consisted of: anti-corruption training for the complete staff, a distribution of the relevant regulation concerning corruption and the setting up of an internal complaints desk. These measures suggest that mainly the individual employee has to take responsibility to prevent corruption. Based on three related research stages we conclude that the social-economic context and the organisational characteristics also contribute to the explanation of corruption which implies to go beyond the micro-level when developing an anti-corruption policy. The structure of our analysis is based on the five key variables of Gobert and Punch: the social, economic and cultural characteristics, the nature and structure of the organisation, rationality, neutralisation techniques and moral disengagement and crime facilitative characteristics. This contribution is the first section of a research project on the responsibilities of the public sector and the private companies for public corruption.