OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday
SOUTH Africa has ranked 34th out of 90 countries in a Transparency International (TI) survey on perceptions of corruption.
The 2000 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) released Tuesday, showed that South Africa had almost retained its position since 1998 when it ranked 32nd out of 85 countries. The least corrupt country in the world is Finland, followed closely by Denmark. New Zealand and Sweden ranked third and Canada fifth.
Although Nigeria came last, TI pointed out that this ranking had to be seen a context of change taking place there. The index illustrated that change took time, said TI chair Peter Eigen.
Major efforts were being made by President Olusegun Obasanjo to promote change and root out corruption by past Nigerian leaders.
“But, the process of change is barely 12 months old and so it is not surprising that Nigeria’s CPI score is virtually unchanged,” said Eigen. TI pledged to support Obasanjo’s anti-corruption drive.
The CPI ranks countries in terms of the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians.
Surveys were conducted of business people, the public and country analysts in 90 countries over the last three years to produce the index.
While the rankings are important, TI has stressed that they should not be given undue weight. TI executive director Jeremy Pope explained that TI had “good enough polling data for about one half of the world’s nations and I believe that there are many countries which, if we had the numbers would rank even below the lowest countries on the CPI index.”
Of the African countries in the survey, South Africa was beaten by Botswana which ranked 26th followed by Namibia at 30th place. Zimbabwe ranked 65th.