Ja slips 12 places on corruption index

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Jamaica has been ranked the 96th most corrupt country in the world by the German-based Trans-parency International (TI), down from an 84th ranking last year.

The organisation surveyed 180 countries for its 2008 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and ranks countries according to the degree to which politicians and public officials are perceived to be corrupt by business leaders and non-resident analysts.

According to TI, the index highlights the fatal link between poverty, failed institutions and graft, but also indicates that the strength of oversight mechanisms is at risk among the wealthiest nations.

"The continuing high levels of corruption and poverty plaguing many of the world's societies amount to an ongoing humanitarian disaster and cannot be tolerated. But even in more privileged countries, with enforcement disturbingly uneven, a tougher approach to tackling corruption is needed," said the TI report which was released yesterday.

Countries on the CPI are scored on a scale of 0-10, with 0 being the most corrupt and 10 being the least. Jamaica's 96th ranking and 3.1 score tied it with African countries Gabon, Mali, and Benin, Guatemala in Central America and Kiribati in the Pacific.

Denmark, Sweden and New Zealand were rated the least corrupt in 2008 followed by Singapore, with Somalia rated the world's most corrupt country scoring 1.0.

Zimbabwe, burdened by hyper-inflation and political strife, is ranked at 166 scoring 1.8. In the Caribbean St Lucia is ranked the least corrupt at 21 with a score of 7.1 followed by Barbados at 22 with 7.0.

Haiti, the least developed Caricom (Caribbean Community) country and one of the poorest in the world, ranked 177 with a rating of 1.4. The US ranks at 18, tied with Japan and Belgium and behind the United Kingdom at 16 and Canada at nine.