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India ranked 88th on corruption index
By Lachlan Carmichael in LondonTuesday, 18 October , 2005, 18:47
Sleaze watchdog Transparency International has placed India 88th in a list of 159 countries surveyed for the level of corruption. India ranks weay below United States, Norway and Australia in the list topped by Iceland. India emerged seven ranks lower than its neighbour Sri Lanka rated 82nd.
Chad, Bangladesh, Turkmenistan and Myanmar were perceived as the most corrupt countries in the world.
Transparency International said in its annual report on Tuesday that serious levels of corruption existed in two thirds of the 159 countries surveyed, and that there was a clear link between poverty and corruption.
Most of the countries that landed at the bottom of the list were African countries, while those which came in at the top were industrialized Asian and western countries, according to Berlin-based Transparency International.
The nations perceived as the most corrupt also rank among the world’s poorest, which shows how corruption and poverty feed off each other, according to the organization’s 2005 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).
“Corruption is a major cause of poverty as well as a barrier to overcoming it,” locking poor countries in “a cycle of misery,” said Transparency International Chairman Peter Eigen.
“Corruption must be vigorously addressed if aid is to make a real difference in freeing people from poverty,” he said.
Despite progress on many fronts, including the imminent entry into force of the United Nations Convention against Corruption, 70 countries scored less than three on the CPI, indicating a severe corruption problem, the report said.
The CPI index score relates to perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business people and country analysts and ranges between 10, which is highly clean and zero, which is highly corrupt.
For example, the United States was ranked 17th with a score of 7.6.
Iceland topped the list with a score of 9.7, followed by Finland (9.6), New Zealand (9.6), Denmark (9.5), Singapore (9.4), Sweden (9.2), Switzerland (9.1) Norway (8.9), Australia (8.8) and Austria (8.7)
Bottom of the list was Chad (1.7) followed by Bangladesh (1.7), Turkmenistan (1.8), Myanmar (1.8), Haiti (1.8), Nigeria (1.9), Equatorial Guinea (1.9), Cote d’Ivoire (1.9), Angola (2.0) and Tajikistan (2.1).
The rankings included shifts in performance over the last year.
An increase in perceived corruption from 2004 to 2005 can be measured in countries such as Costa Rica, Gabon, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Uruguay, it said.
With a score of 3.2, Sri Lanka ranked number 82 on the list. On the other hand, a number of countries and territories show a decline in perceptions of corruption over the past year, including Estonia, France, Hong Kong, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Qatar, Taiwan and Turkey, it said. Hong Kong ranked 15 at 8.3, Japan was 21 at 7.3, France was 18 at 7.5, Taiwan and Qatar were both ranked 32 at 5.9, Jordan was 37 at 5.7, and Turkey was 65 at 3.5, while India was 88 at 2.9.
Indians pay Rs 210 bn in bribes every year: SurveyWednesday, 19 October , 2005, 16:53New Delhi: Indians pay $4.6 billion in bribes each year to obtain basic services such as water and electricity, Transparency International said on Wednesday.
The survey, titled “India Corruption Study 2005,” sought the opinions of 14,405 respondents across India. “The total monetary value of petty corruption to get 11 basic services is estimated to be Rs 210 billion ($4.6 billion),” the report said. Discuss: Corruption has led to India’s downfall
Sixty-two per cent of respondents said they had “first-hand experience of paying a bribe or using a contact to get a job done in a public office”, the report said. ** Editor’s Choice**
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India ranked 88th on corruption index
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The other departments named by Indians as corrupt were private schools – where parents paid money to ensure their children gained admission – the lower judiciary, government hospitals and the income tax department, the report said.
The 11 services were chosen based on their public value, availability across the country and monopolistic nature of the amenities, the report said. The survey found almost 75 per cent of those surveyed said they felt levels of corruption had gone up in the past year.
The corruption index scores showed that people said they paid because officials had the potential to disrupt business and home life if they did not, the report said.
Indian police were ranked the most corrupt with as many as 80 per cent of those who had interacted with the department saying they had parted with money to get work done.
The lower judiciary was ranked the second-most corrupt service with land administration and municipal services – electricity and water – in the third and fourth slots. Bihar was found to be the most corrupt in the country while Kerala was voted the least corrupt. Suggestions made by the respondents to cut down on corruption included more competition, performance-based allocation of funds and greater transparency in the application process to reduce the role of middle-men, the survey said. In its report released in London on Tuesday, Transparency International ranked India the 88th most corrupt country out of the 159 surveyed