Corruption has gone up in Nepal: Transparency Int’l

October 19, 2005
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With the dismissal of the multi-party government and restrictions on media, among others, Nepal has slipped 27 positions downwards in the corruption perception index (CPI), an international corruption watchdog said.

According to the CPI 2005 published by Transparency International in Berlin on Tuesday, Nepal now stands at 117th position out of 159 countries surveyed this year. Only last year, Nepal stood at 90th position out of 146 countries surveyed.

In a scale of 1 (most corrupt) to 10 (most clean), Nepal scored 2.8 last year. This year, Nepal has scored 2.5.

“The poor performance of Nepal can be attributed to a large extent to the continuing political instability in the country,” the TI report said. “The royal takeover in February this year, the sacking of the elected government in October 2002 and the bloody civil war have all weakened the country’s governance systems and public trust in them. Despite constitutional protection of freedom of expression, in practice, the ability of the media to report on corruption is curtailed and other democratic freedoms are severely threatened,” the TI report said.

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 & Tobago and Uruguay,” the TI report said.

Conversely, a number of countries and territories have shown noteworthy improvements – a decline in perceptions of corruption – over the past year, including Estonia, France, Hong Kong, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Qatar, Taiwan and Turkey.

According to the latest TI report, Bangladesh and Chad are lowest in the list with a CPI score of 1.7 while Pakistan and Sri Lanka stand in 144th and 82nd position with the CPI scores of 2.1 and 3.2.

Iceland has achieved the distinction of the cleanest country with a CPI score of 9.7. Finland and New Zealand stand second in the list with the score of 9.6. While UK and USA stand in 11th and 17th positions with the score of 8.6 and 7.6 respectively. India and China stand in 88th and 77th positions with the score of 2.9 and 3.2 respectively.

According to the TI report, over two-thirds of the 159 nations surveyed in scored less than 5 out of a clean score of 10, indicating serious levels of corruption in a majority of the countries surveyed.

The 2005 Index bears witness to the double burden of poverty and corruption borne by the world’s least developed countries.

“Corruption is a major cause of poverty as well as a barrier to overcoming it,” said Transparency International Chairman Peter Eigen. “The two scourges feed off each other, locking their populations in a cycle of misery. Corruption must be vigorously addressed if aid is to make a real difference in freeing people from poverty.”

Despite progress on many fronts, including the imminent entry into force of the United Nations Convention against Corruption, seventy countries – nearly half of those included in the Index – scored less than 3 on the CPI, indicating a severe corruption problem. Among the countries included in the Index, corruption is perceived as most rampant in Chad, Bangladesh, Turkmenistan, Myanmar and Haiti – also among the poorest countries in the world.