| Submit your comments on this article |
| Bangladesh |
| Bangladesh now No 10 |
| 2008-09-24 |
| There has been no significant success in the unprecedented anti-corruption drive in the last 19 months in Bangladesh, which has ranked 10th among the most corrupt countries this year. Bangladesh has jumped up three positions to 147th with 2.1 points in the annual global corruption perceptions index (CPI) of the Transparency International (TI) with a mere 0.1-point increase. Kenya, Russia and Syria have scored the same. Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) said the shift in position bears almost no significance in terms of reining corruption; it is rather the result of decline in other countries' status. The international anti-corruption watchdog's Bangladesh officials blamed three factors for the country's poor score--absence of administrative reforms, influence on the judiciary, and insecurity and uncertainty in business and investment. "Point-one increase is not at all statistically significant," Prof Muzaffer Ahmad, chairman of TIB board of trustees, said at a press conference at the Jatiya Press Club yesterday. The CPI 2008 was unveiled at the press conference. Pointing to an apparent failure in maintaining the integrity of the legal process, TIB Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman said, "If the oversight institutions could work properly, for example, if the judiciary were not influenced, Bangladesh's position could have been better in the index." He said at one point of the anti-corruption drive, no graft accused got bail although they were expected to. "But in a completely opposite scene later, we saw the accused being freed from jail on bail as if it was a procession," he added. Somalia remains at the bottom of the list as the most corrupt country like last year, jointly followed by Myanmar and Iraq. Haiti is in third position while Afghanistan fourth from the bottom. Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden have jointly ranked as the least corrupt countries with 9.3 points. Singapore followed them with 9.2 points, and Finland and Switzerland with 9 points. The only other Asian country among the top 20 least corrupt countries is Hong Kong, which ranked 12th with 8.1 points. Of the other South Asian countries, Pakistan ranked 14th from the bottom, Nepal 16th, the Maldives 17th, Sri Lanka 21st, India 22nd and Bhutan 36th. Having scored 8.6 points in 2006 and 8.4 last year, the UK has scored 7.7, marking a serious deterioration hardly seen in the 14-year history of CPI. This has been attributed to the UK government's intervention into Serious Fraud Office's investigations into BAE Systems' alleged bribing of Saudi officials, the TI said. The annual CPI was first released in 1995 and has since become most well known of the TI tools. The index includes 180 countries for ranking on their perceived degree of prevalence of political and administrative corruption determined in 14 surveys conducted by internationally reputed institutions. The data used in the CPI reflect corruption and bribery, diversion of funds, misuse of public office for private or political gain, extent of corruption in the government, public sector corruption, government's anti-corruption efforts and achievements and its capacity to punish and contain corruption, and undocumented extra payments collected in the discharge of government functions, judiciary, executive level, and tax collection. Bangladesh has ranked as the most corrupt country for five consecutive years since 2000, and third in 2006. The country's ranking went up four positions last year with 2 points. "Bangladesh's apparent upward movement in ranking from seventh to tenth does not necessarily indicate any notable better performance over last year, except that other countries may have performed worse," the TI said. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 the site and data |
| Posted by: pig headed muzzer 2008-09-24 14:31 |
| #2 Number 10 with one round of bullet. |
| Posted by: Grunter 2008-09-24 13:56 |
| #1 They'll always be Number 2 in my book. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-09-24 08:28 |