Corruption index, Ghana improves, Wednesday, October 27, 2010. Pg 3
GHANA has recorded its highest performance ever in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) by scoring 4.1 out of 10 in the latest ratings by Transparency International released yesterday.
The latest report by the international anti-corruption body ranked Ghana as the seventh least corrupt country among 47 African countries and 62nd among 178 countries surveyed this year.
This represents an improvement over Ghana’s 2009 ranking of 69 with a score of 3.9. The country scored 3.3 in 1999; 3.7 in 2008 and 3.9 in 2009.
Botswana leads the African region with a score of 5.8, followed by Mauritius with 5.4; Cape Verde, 5.1; Seychelles, 4.8; South Africa, 4.5 and Namibia 4.4.
Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria and Burundi are some of the most corrupt countries on the CPI ratings for this year.
At the global level, Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore share the top spot as the least corrupt followed by Finland, Sweden, Canada and The Netherlands in that order.
The CPI assessed the extent of corruption among public officials and politicians. It reflects the views from around the world, including those of experts living and working in the countries evaluated.
Data for the 2010 index were collected from expert analysts from organisations, including the African Development Bank, the World Economic Forum, the World Bank, Freedom House and the Asian Development Bank.
Launching the report in Accra, the Executive Secretary of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Mr Victus Azeem, said in spite of the apparent improvement on Ghana’s performance on the index, there was no cause to celebrate,” taking into consideration the pace of improvements since 1999, sometimes stagnating (as in 2009) or even performing worse in some years (as in 2003 and 2006) than in previous years”.
He stated that the inconsistent performance was an indication that the country should not rest on it laurels as it was yet to catch up with any of the leading countries since the inception
of the index.
“Rather than being complacent, this score should continue to remind us that we are far from winning the fight against corruption, which also frustrates our fight against poverty, disease, ignorance, crime and insecurity,“ Mr Azeem said.
He called for steps to address allegations in which Ghanaian public officials were implicated, saying, “High profile cases such as the Mabey&Johnson and the Daimler Chrysler cases continued to linger in the minds of Ghanaians. In fact, the world is watching us to see how we will address these cases.”
The board chairperson of the GII, Dr Audrey Gadzekpo, in her remarks, said the CPI and other anti-corruption initiatives were a reality check on policy makers, who might otherwise think that enacting laws to prevent corruption was enough to curb the canker.
The latest report by the international anti-corruption body ranked Ghana as the seventh least corrupt country among 47 African countries and 62nd among 178 countries surveyed this year.
This represents an improvement over Ghana’s 2009 ranking of 69 with a score of 3.9. The country scored 3.3 in 1999; 3.7 in 2008 and 3.9 in 2009.
Botswana leads the African region with a score of 5.8, followed by Mauritius with 5.4; Cape Verde, 5.1; Seychelles, 4.8; South Africa, 4.5 and Namibia 4.4.
Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria and Burundi are some of the most corrupt countries on the CPI ratings for this year.
At the global level, Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore share the top spot as the least corrupt followed by Finland, Sweden, Canada and The Netherlands in that order.
The CPI assessed the extent of corruption among public officials and politicians. It reflects the views from around the world, including those of experts living and working in the countries evaluated.
Data for the 2010 index were collected from expert analysts from organisations, including the African Development Bank, the World Economic Forum, the World Bank, Freedom House and the Asian Development Bank.
Launching the report in Accra, the Executive Secretary of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Mr Victus Azeem, said in spite of the apparent improvement on Ghana’s performance on the index, there was no cause to celebrate,” taking into consideration the pace of improvements since 1999, sometimes stagnating (as in 2009) or even performing worse in some years (as in 2003 and 2006) than in previous years”.
He stated that the inconsistent performance was an indication that the country should not rest on it laurels as it was yet to catch up with any of the leading countries since the inception
of the index.
“Rather than being complacent, this score should continue to remind us that we are far from winning the fight against corruption, which also frustrates our fight against poverty, disease, ignorance, crime and insecurity,“ Mr Azeem said.
He called for steps to address allegations in which Ghanaian public officials were implicated, saying, “High profile cases such as the Mabey&Johnson and the Daimler Chrysler cases continued to linger in the minds of Ghanaians. In fact, the world is watching us to see how we will address these cases.”
The board chairperson of the GII, Dr Audrey Gadzekpo, in her remarks, said the CPI and other anti-corruption initiatives were a reality check on policy makers, who might otherwise think that enacting laws to prevent corruption was enough to curb the canker.
Comments
Post a Comment