Bangladesh ranked 7th most corrupt country

FE Team | Published: September 27, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

FE Report
Bangladesh has been ranked seventh among the most corrupt countries in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2007 of Transparency International (TI).
The country's score this time did not, however, make any change against the last year's score of 2.0.
Transparency International, the Berlin-based global anti-corruption watchdog, released the CPI report Wednesday all over the world that provides, in a scale of 0-10, international ranking of countries in terms of perceived degree of prevalence of political and administrative corruption.
The Bangladesh chapter of the TI released the index report at a press conference at the Jatiya Press Club. The conference was addressed by Transparency International, Bangladesh (TIB) Chairman Prof Dr Muzaffer Ahmad and Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman.
Last year Bangladesh was ranked in the third position under CPI of the TI. In the year, the CPI included 163 countries from around the globe. Bangladesh was, however, placed earlier at the bottom of the list for fifth successive years from 2001 to 2005.
The CPI scores countries on a scale from zero to ten, with zero indicating high levels of perceived corruption and ten, indicating low levels of perceived corruption.
Under this year's CPI, Denmark, Finland and New Zealand jointly ranked first as the least corrupt countries in the world, each scoring 9.4.
The results show that Bangladesh having scored 2.0 and being ranked seventh from below, is at the 162nd position among 180 countries included in the index this year. In the same position with the same score as that of Bangladesh are five countries -- Cambodia, Central African Republic, Papua New Guinea, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
Somalia and Myanmar have bottomed the list, meaning corruption in these two countries is perceived to be the highest, followed by Iraq and Haiti (second and third positions respectively). Uzbekistan and Tonga are jointly in the fourth position followed by Sudan, Chad and Afghanistan (jointly fifth) while Democratic Republic of Congo, Equitorial Guinea, Laos and Guinea have been ranked at the sixth position.
Among the Asian countries, Singapore topped the list scoring 9.3 along with Sweden.
Somalia and Myanmar ranked as the most corrupt nations in the world with the lowest score of 1.4 out of 10 in the CPI 2007.
Five more countries -- Cambodia, Central African Republic, Papua New Guinea, Turkmenistan and Venezuela -- scored the same with the same ranking in this year's index.
Among South Asian countries - Bhutan was positioned at 46th, India at 72nd, Maldives at 84th, Sri Lanka at 94th, Nepal at 131st and Pakistan at 138th.
Prof Muzaffer Ahmad, while releasing the TI report, said There has been no change in corruption in Bangladesh as the country remains exactly where it was in 2006.
"We may see it as an improvement in corruption as Bangladesh jumped to seventh position from last year's third position in TI's corruption perceptions index. But the fact is that the country remains exactly where it was, as there is no change in its score," Prof Muzaffer told reporters.
He was replying to a volley of questions from the journalists at a press conference where TIB presented the Transparency International (TI)'s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).
The TIB chairman said score is a much more important indicator than ranking to perceive the level of corruption in a country.
Explaining how Bangladesh improved in its ranking from last year's third position to seventh under the latest, Prof Muzaffer said last year 163 countries were included in the index against this year's 180. "So a country's ranking can change simply because of the entry of new countries into the index or dropout of others," he added.
Asked whether the government's anti-corruption drive could have cast any impact on the TI index, he said the index gives a two-year rolling average. "Included in this year's index were data collected until the end of July 2007, which means that CPI 2007 was relatively more influenced by data from 2006."
"Secondly, it should also be noted that the index draws on corruption-related data from experts and business surveys. Hence, it is quite likely that a perceived sense of insecurity and uncertainty that is widely believed to have prevailed among the business community in the wake of the post 1/11 anti-corruption drive in Bangladesh may have prevented the possibility of a better score," Prof Muzaffer said.
Finally, he said, it also appears that for the unprecedented institutional reform measures initiated by the present government in such vital areas as separation of the Judiciary, reform of the Election Commission, Anti-Corruption Commission and Public Service Commission as well as ratification of UN convention against corruption are too early to influence the CPI 2007.
"We can be hopeful seeing that Bangladesh has been successful in resisting downward spiraling this year, while there are at least 10 poor countries where corruption situation deteriorated in the CPI 2007," he said.
The 2007 index is the result of 14 surveys conducted by 11 internationally reputed independent institutions.
In case of Bangladesh, sources of data for the CPI 2007 were the seven surveys -- Country Policy and Institutional Assessment by the World Bank 2006-07, Country Risk Service and Country Forecast by Economist Intelligence Unit 2007, Grey Area Dynamics 2007 by Merchant International Group. Global Competitiveness Report 2006-07 by World Economic Forum, Country Risk Ratings by the World Markets Research Centre, Country Performance Assessment Ratings 2006-07 by Asian Development Bank; and Bertelsmann Transformation Index 200-08 by Bertelsmann Foundation, the TIB pointed out.
Pointing to the global index, the TI pointed out that scores are significantly higher in several African countries in the 2007 CPI.
These include Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa and Swaziland. These results reflect the positive progress of anti-corruption efforts in Africa and show that genuine political will and reform can lower perceived levels of corruption.