by PK Jarju
Transperancy International Tuesday released its annual global Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) and it was not surprising to see the Gambia being ranked among the most corrupt countries in the world.
The Gambia together with Burundi, Congo, Sierra Leone, Angola and Guinea Bissau, came 158th position, putting them rock bottom of the index ahead of only five African countries; Zimbabwe, DR Congo, Guinea,Chad,Sudan and Somalia.
Denmark came first as the least corrupt country followed by Sweden, New Zealand, Singapore, Finland and Switzerland.
Bostwana top the list of least corrupt countries in Africa coming in 35th position. It is followed by Mauritius in 41st position. Cape Verde Island and South Africa came 47th and 54th positions respectively. Other countries that came far ahead of the Gambia on the index include, Seychelles, Namibia,Tunisia,Ghana,Swaziland, Burkina Faso, Morocco, Senagal, Mali and even Nigeria, which was a couple of years ago named as the most corrupt country.
The score is based on perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business people and country analysts.
In a statement on its website, Transparency International stated that the index is based on perceptions of public sector corruption in 180 countries and territories. It added that this year's Corruption Perceptions Index was calculated using data from 13 sources originated from 11 independent institutions. It added that all sources measure the overall extent of corruption (frequency and/or size of bribes) in the public and political sectors and all sources provide a ranking of countries, i.e., include an assessment of multiple countries.
"Evaluation of the extent of corruption in countries is done by country experts, non resident and residents. In the CPI 2008, this consists of the following sources: Asian Development Bank, African Development Bank, Bertelsmann Transformation Index, Country Policy and Institutional Assessment, Economist Intelligence Unit, Freedom House, Global Insight and Merchant International Group. Additional sources are resident business leaders evaluating their own country; in the CPI 2008, this consists of the following sources: IMD, Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, and the World Economic Forum,” institution added.
