For the tenth year running, Somalia is the
worst performer on the index
Ghana has dropped four places in terms of
scores in the 22nd Annual Corruption
Perception Index (CPI) released by anti-graft
body Transparency International released on
Wednesday, 25 January 2017.
A statement issued by Ghana Integrity
Initiative (GII), the local chapter of TI said:
“The CPI 2016 scored Ghana 43 points out of
a possible clean score of 100 and ranked the
country 70 out of 176 countries included in
this year’s index.” In the sub-Saharan region,
the country ranked 9th.
GII said the drop in Ghana’s performance
could be attributed to corruption scandals
that bordered on the Ghana Youth
Employment and Entrepreneurial Development
Authority (GYEEDA), Savannah Accelerated
Development Authority (SADA), GHS144
million GRA/Subah Scandal, the infamous
GHS51 million judgment debt saga and the
Smartty's bus rebranding scandal.
“The CPI 2016 used nine (9) out of the (13)
data sources of independent institutions with
a high level of credibility to compute the index
for Ghana. The sources and their
corresponding scores include the World Bank
Country Policy and Institutional Assessment,
African Development Bank, Bertelsmann
Foundation Transformation, World Economic
Forum and World Justice Project. The rest are
Economic Intelligence Unit, Political Risk
Service International Country Risk Guide,
Varieties of Democracy and Global Insight.
“This year, the CPI shows that Ghana’s
performance has dropped by 4 percentage
points from its 2015 score of 47 points. This
score is the lowest in Ghana’s CPI scores
since 2012 when CPI scores became
comparable.
“It is worthy to note that, although Ghana
performed better than several other African
countries, including Lesotho and Burkina
Faso, Ghana also performed below eight other
African countries (Botswana - 60, Cape Verde
- 59, Mauritius – 54, Rwanda – 54, Namibia –
52, Sao Tome and Principe – 46, Senegal – 45
and South Africa - 45).
“The 2016 CPI score indicates that, in spite of
Ghana’s efforts at fighting corruption the
canker is still a serious problem. Ghana’s
score of 43 points is a likely reflection of the
many exposés of public sector corruption in
the last few years including the police
recruitment scam, Ghana Youth Employment
and Entrepreneurial Development Authority
(GYEEDA) scandal, Savannah Accelerated
Development Authority (SADA) scandal, GHc
144 million GRA/Subah Scandal, the infamous
Woyome’s GHC 51 million judgment debt saga
and the Smartty's bus rebranding deal. This is
likely compounded by government perceived
inability to fully resolve high profile corruption
cases,” the statement said.
This year’s index ranked 176 countries/
territories by their perceived levels of public
sector corruption. The index draws on 13
surveys covering views of business people and
country experts. The Corruption Perceptions
Index is the leading global indicator of
perceived public sector corruption, offering a
yearly snapshot of the relative degree of
corruption by ranking countries from all over
the globe.
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THE AFRICAN PICTURE
In Africa, Botswana once again was first with
a score of 60, ranking 35 globally and
followed by Cape Verde with a score of 59
and ranking 38 globally. Third and fourth was
occupied by Mauritius and Rwanda with both
scoring 54 and ranked 50 globally. Namibia
and Sao Tome and Principe scored 52 and 46
respectively and ranked 53 and 62 globally
but fifth and sixth in Africa. Senegal and
South Africa both scored 45 and ranked 64
globally. Overall, only five out 46 African
countries that qualified to be captured by the
index s scored above 50.
Many African countries dominated the bottom
of the CPI with Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan,
Libya, Guinea Bissau, Eritrea and Angola
scoring 10, 11, 14, 14, 16, 18 and 18 with
rankings of 176, 175, 170, 170, 168, 164 and
164 respectively.
GLOBAL PERFORMANCE
Denmark and New Zealand performed best
with scores of 90, closely followed by Finland
(89) and Sweden (88). Although no country is
free of corruption, the countries at the top
share characteristics of high standards in
open government, press freedom, civil liberties
and independent judicial systems.
For the tenth year running, Somalia is the
worst performer on the index, this year scoring
only 10. South Sudan is second to bottom
with a score of 11, followed by North Korea
(12) and Syria (13). Countries at the bottom
of the index are also characterised by
widespread impunity for corruption, poor
governance and weak institutions.
This year more countries declined in the index
than improved, showing the need for urgent
action. Countries in troubled regions,
particularly in the Middle East, have seen the
most substantial drops this year.
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