[ 2017-01-25 ]

Ghana Ranked 70th Corrupt Country
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.
 

 

Source - classfmonline.com

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