Watchdog Calls on International Community to Jointly Fight Corruption

Set up in 1995, the Corruption Perception Index is compiled every year by Transparency International and reflects perceptions of corruption around the world in public sectors as well as administrative and political corruption. Nepal ranked at 130th and Bangladesh placed at 139th in the index. The index grades a country on a scale of zero to 100, the latter being the least corrupt.

Guinea, Laos, Kenya, Papua New Guinea and Uganda also remained at par with Bangladesh, each scoring 25.

Transparency International Russia chief Elena Panfilova speaks to the media during a news conference in Moscow on Wednesday.

Corruption Watch’s Executive Director David Lewis says the fact that South Africa has improved from being 67th in 2014 to 61st shows that perceptions are stabilising.

As part of its efforts this year to tackle corruption, Transparency International has set up a website (unmaskthecorrupt.org) for people to vote on the most pressing graft cases.

“Corruption can be beaten if we work together”, said TI chairman Jose Ugaz in a statement.

The CPI is decided based on the data provided by 12 sources, which include The Global Insight Country Risk Ratings, World Bank – Country Policy and Institutional Assessment 2014, World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey (EOS) 2015.

North Korea, which joined the list in 2011, scored 8 out of 100 and shared last place with Somalia in 2015.

The release also said, The big decliners in the past 4 years include Libya, Australia, Brazil, Spain and Turkey. Most improvement was seen in Greece, Senegal and the UK. The Nordic countries still lead the way with Denmark (on 91 points) dominating the rankings for the second consecutive year, followed by Finland (on 90 points) and Sweden (on 89 points).

According to Berlin-based Transparency International, 68 per cent countries have a serious corruption problem and half of the G20 are among them.