Nigeria moved to 144th from 148th position in Transparency International latest corruption perception index (CPI) worldwide that also saw the United States dropping four notches out of the top 20 countries in the world.
However, Nigeria made the four notch jump without improving its score of 27 out of a possible 100 as recorded in 2017.
Africa’s most populous country is tied with Kenya, Comoros, Guatemala and Mauritania. And it is ranked better than Cameroon put at 152nd.
Botswana remains Africa’s most transparent country with a ranking of 34 followed by Namibia, Mauritius and Senegal.
The United States slid to 22nd in the world from 18th last year, dropping out of the top 20 countries for the first time since 2011, Transparency International said in a report that cited growing threats to democracy worldwide.
The group said its latest report on business leaders’ perceptions of corruption put the United States at 71, down from 75, on a scale of 0-100.
“That sounds a wake-up call about the need to tackle conflicts of interest, undue influence of the private sector and widening gaps between rich and poor,” said Zoe Reiter, the watchdog’s acting representative to the United States.
“This is a red flag because it’s really part of a pattern that we’ve seen since the 2008 global financial crisis of a loss of trust in our public institutions,” she said.
“People don’t see us as having adequate mechanisms in place to fight corruption and ensure the accountability of our elected officials.”
Concerns were already mounting before the election of Donald Trump, although they have been highlighted by the actions of a rich president who defied precedent to keep his personal tax affairs secret and retain his business holdings in office.
“Concerns around the Trump administration are quite serious, but this has been stewing for several years. Conflict of interest wasn’t a new problem, but it was illuminated in its glory when you have someone who is basically breaking norms.
“Trump is a symptom not a cause. His presidency is illuminating some of the problems.”
Denmark and New Zealand had the best scores on the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) again in 2018, scoring 88 and 87, while Somalia, Syria and South Sudan remained at the bottom, with scores of 10, 13 and 13, TI said.
Overall, more than two-thirds of countries scored below 50 on the 2018 index and the average was 43, said TI, which has more than 100 chapters worldwide.
The group said only 20 countries had significantly improved their scores since 2012, including Argentina and Ivory Coast.
Sixteen others, including Australia, Chile and Malta, declined significantly in the same period.
The average score for EU and western European countries held steady at 66, while sub-Saharan Africa scored just 32, TI said. A score of 100 is considered ‘veryclean’ while a score of zero is highly corrupt.
TI said its analysis showed a clear link between having a healthy democracy and fighting public sector corruption; therefore, it cited declining scores for Turkey and Hungary in connection with challenges to the rule of law and press freedoms.
Hungary’s score dropped by eight points to 46 over the past five years, amid troubling developments including the forced departure of the Open Society Foundation and Central European University, founded by philanthropist George Soros, TI said.
Turkey’s score dropped by nine points in the same period to a score of 41, as the country was downgraded to ‘not free’ on a democracy ranking, TI said.
“Corruption is much more likely to flourish where democratic foundations are weak and where undemocratic and populist politicians can use it to their advantage,” said Delia Ferreira Rubio who chairs the global civil society group.
Meanwhile, the Managing Director of TI, Patricia Moreira, said the CPI released today reveals that the continued failure of most countries to significantly control corruption contributed to a crisis of democracy around the world.
“With many democratic institutions under threat across the globe – often by leaders with authoritarian or populist tendencies – we need to do more to strengthen checks and balances and protect citizens’ rights,” she said.
Moreira added, “Corruption chips away at democracy to produce a vicious cycle, where corruption undermines democratic institutions and, in turn, weak institutions are less able to control corruption.”
The 2018 CPI draws on 13 surveys and expert assessments to measure public sector corruption in 180 countries and territories, giving each a score from zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).
The report shown that Nigeria, the most populous black nation in the world, is still perceived as a country enveloped in corruption without clear policies to address the challenge.
The 2018 Corruptions Perceptions Index (CPI) report was released on Tuesday, January 28, stating that the situation in Nigeria has neither improved nor progressed in the perception.
The report shows that Nigeria ranked 144 out of 180 countries in the year under review as against the 148 out of 180 countries in the 2017 on the CPI report.
Denmark and New Zealand came first and second respectively while Finland, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland came third. Norway and Netherlands came seventh and eighth as Canada and Luxembourg came ninth, according to the report.
A statement released by Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), the Nigerian chapter of the Transparency International, said the country scored 27 out of 100 points in the 2018 CPI, maintaining the same score as in the 2017 CPI.
In 2016, Nigeria reportedly scored 27/100 and was ranked 136th but dropped to 148/180 in 2017 despite a higher score of 28/100
Transparency International in its 2017 report had identified public procurement fraud as constituting a large chunk of corruption in public service and recommended immediate constitution of public procurement council as one of the ways to address the menace.
Some top administration officials responded by promising to establish the council promptly as recommended by the Public Procurement Act 2007. However, the council has not been constituted, and procurement remained enmeshed in suspected fraud.
In December 2017, shortly before TI published its report, finding has it that Mr Buhari has followed his predecessors in violating the procurement law by failing to constitute the council and allowing non-transparent contracts to pass through.
The presidency, in a statement by Garba Shehu presidential spokesperson replied at the time, claiming the committee was being constituted and would kick off within weeks, a claim that turned out false.
CISLAC strongly believed that eliminating corruption from public service would propel Nigeria’s economic standing amongst the rest of the world.
Sourced from Premium Times
