Ghana Closes In On Corruption Hall Of Shame

Ghana is the 70th least corrupt country in the world according to a new worldwide poll. Ghana's world ranking is 20 places down from last year (see table below). The nation's CPI score fell from 3.9 to 3.3, out of a total score of 10, indicating an increase in corruption.

The index scored the 133 countries involved out of 10 and uses polls within each country on the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians.

Scores of less than two, indicate widespread corruption and scores of more than nine, shows very low levels of corruption.

Bangladesh is ranked the most corrupt country and Finland the least.

Addressing a news conference in Accra, Executive Secretary of the local chapter of Transparency International, Ghana Integrity Initiative, Daniel Batidam, said the score means the corruption situation in the country has worsened.

The index places Ghana as the 7th least corrupt in Africa out of a total of twenty-eight countries selected for the survey. Botswana is ranked the least corrupt in Africa whereas Cameroon and Nigeria lie at the bottom of the index as the most corrupt countries both in Africa and in the world.

Mr. Batidam told the news conference that emphasis must be placed on the score and not the ranking. He said this year’s score of 3.3 suggests that not much has been achieved in terms of curbing corruption despite the government’s declared war on it. He said this also means that corruption is on the rise again. He urged government to show some more commitment and resolve in dealing with the situation.

Mr. Batidam warned that President Kufuor’s campaign of Zero Tolerance for Corruption would remain a farce if concrete steps are not taken to deal with the canker.

Developing countries dominate the worst offenders in the corruption hall of shame, with Nigeria, Haiti, Paraguay Myanmar hot on the heels of Bangladesh.

Scandinavia proved to be the most honest area. Finland is followed by Iceland and Denmark in the top three.

Transparency International (TI), which compiled the 2003 report, warned the findings showed the need for the world's major economies to help poorer ones in combating corruption.

TI chairman Peter Eigen, said: "The new index points to high levels of corruption in rich countries as well as poorer ones, making it imperative that developed countries enforce international conventions to curb bribery by international companies."

Scores of less than two, indicating widespread corruption, were awarded to Bangladesh, Nigeria, Haiti, Paraguay, Myanmar, Tajikistan, Georgia, Cameroon, Azerbaijan, Angola, Kenya and Indonesia.

Scores of more than nine, showing very low levels of corruption, went to Finland, Iceland, Denmark, New Zealand, Singapore and Sweden.

The United Kingdom scored 8.7, placing it joint 11th with Canada and Luxembourg, behind Australia on 8.8 but ahead of Germany on 7.7, the USA on 7.5 and France, 6.9.

Germany-based TI is an international non-governmental organisation devoted to curbing corruption.

Key

High-Low Range: provides the highest and lowest values of the sources. Since each individual source has its own scaling system, scores are standardised around a common mean for the subset of countries featuring in the individual survey. As a result, it is possible in rare cases that the highest value exceeds 10.0 and the lowest can be lower than 0.0. Only the aggregate final country scores are restricted to the reported range between 0 and 10.