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.
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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