October 8, 2003	Wednesday	Sha’aban 11, 1424

LONDON, Oct 7: Seven out of 10 countries scored less than half marks on a corruption index released on Tuesday that had Bangladesh bottom and Finland as the world’s cleanest nation.

“The whole world recognizes that corruption impoverishes people all over the world... We cannot and we must not drop our guard,” said Transparency International (TI) head Peter Eigen at the group’s London release of its latest annual survey.

The group said its “Corruption Perceptions Index” showed unacceptably high levels of public sector corruption in many rich countries, but an even worse picture among poor nations where half scored less than three out of 10.

After Bangladesh, the worst offenders were Nigeria, Haiti, Paraguay, Myanmar, Tajikistan, Georgia, Cameroon, Azerbaijan, Angola, Kenya and Indonesia — all scored under two.

Pakistan and the Philippines shared 92nd position with six other nations, including Gambia and Albania, with just 2.5 out of 10.

India fared little better, recording a score of 2.8 to rank equal 83rd in the world with Malawi and Romania.

At the other end of the scale, after Finland, which got a squeaky-clean 9.7, the least corrupt were Iceland, Denmark, New Zealand, Singapore and Sweden. They all scored more than nine.

The corrupting power of oil was evident in the bad showing of nations like Nigeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Libya, Venezuela and Iraq, the group said.

TI picked out European nations Greece and Italy as having “worryingly high” levels of corruption. They came 50th and 35th respectively with scores of 4.3 and 5.3.

The list of the 133 nations with sufficient data available was based on surveys of businessmen, analysts and residents’ views of the prevalence of bribes and theft. The TI defines corruption as abuse of public office for private gain.

While Finland and Bangladesh repeated their placings from the 2002 index, there were numerous changes in the list.

The TI singled out the most notable improvers as Austria, Belgium, Colombia, France, Germany, Ireland, Malaysia, Norway, and Tunisia. On the flip-side “Noteworthy examples of a worsening are Argentina, Belarus, Chile, Canada, Israel, Luxembourg, Poland, USA, and Zimbabwe,” Eigen said.

The Berlin-based group hailed a soon-to-be-signed UN anti-corruption pact as an “unprecedented breakthrough” and urged rich nations to back governments of poor countries tackling the problem.

It singled out Kenya’s reformist President Mwai Kibaki as needing special support.

Kenya came joint 122nd with Indonesia on a score of 1.9.

Transparency International urged donor countries to take a tougher line on corrupt governments.—Reuters