The recently released Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2015 shows that India has moved up in rank from 85 position to 76 (however the number of countries ranked in 2015 was 168 against 174 nations in 2014). Based on expert opinion from around the world, CPI measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption worldwide.
Barring Bhutan ranked 27, which with a score of 65 fares much better than India, other neighbouring countries continue to have a poor record. While China at rank 83 and Bangladesh at rank 139 have reported no improvement, scores of Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal have increased marginally over the past year.
Referring to the high perception of corruption across the Asia Pacific region, the CPI report says that in India and Sri Lanka leaders are falling short of their bold promises whereas governments in Bangladesh and Cambodia are exacerbating corruption by clamping down on civil society. It adds that in Afghanistan and Pakistan a failure to tackle corruption is feeding ongoing vicious conflicts, while China’s prosecutorial approach isn’t bringing sustainable remedy to the menace.
Globally, Denmark retained its position as the least corrupt country for the second year running (with its latest score of 91 points), next in line are Finland and Sweden with scores of 90 and 89 points respectively. Top country performers share key characteristics such as: high levels of press freedom; access to budget information so the public knows where money comes from and how it is spent; high levels of integrity among people in power; and judiciaries that don’t differentiate between rich and poor, and that are truly independent from other parts of government, says a Transparency International press release.
The release adds that: North Korea and Somalia are in the bottom with just eight points each. Brazil was the biggest decliner in the index, falling 5 points and dropping 7 positions to a rank of 76. The unfolding Petrobras scandal brought people into the streets in 2015 and the start of judicial process may help Brazil stop corruption. A poor score is a sign of prevalent bribery, lack of punishment for corruption and public institutions that don’t respond to citizens’ needs, adds this release.
Among the other big changes in the CPI ranking was that the Netherlands entered the league of top five clean countries and Switzerland tumbling to seventh position from its fifth rank in 2014. The report says 68% of countries worldwide have serious corruption problem and half of the G20 are among them.
The big decliners in the past four years include Libya, Australia, Brazil, Spain and Turkey. The big improvers include Greece, Senegal and UK.
