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Cyprus - not so corrupt but transparency an issue
CYPRUS ranked 30th among 183 countries and territories in perceived levels of corruption in the public sector according to the annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) published yesterday.
The CPI, done by civic society Transparency International gathers perceptions of experts on corruption – understood as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain - by politicians, state officials and civil servants.
The CPI ranks countries from 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (very clean).
Cyprus was considered relatively non-corrupt having scored 6.3 and ranking 30th globally and 16th out of 32 countries in its region (EU and west Europe).
Within the EU, Bulgaria ranked last (3.3) followed by Greece (3.4) and Romania (3.6) and Italy (3.9).
Denmark and Finland topped the EU rank with 9.4 followed by Sweden (9.3).
Globally, only New Zealand did better with 9.5.
The UK was 16th globally and 10th in the EU with a score of 7.8; the USA scored 7.1; Australia scored 8.8; Canada got 8.7.
Most of Asia, Latin America and Africa were considered corrupt.
Emerging economies such as Russia, Brazil and China had low scores of 2.4, 3.8 and 3.6 respectively.
New entrants North Korea and Somalia were at the bottom of the list with 1.0 followed Myanmar and Afghanistan (1.5).
Although Cyprus ranked well, one of the issues raised by the CPI report was that of transparency, or access to public information, as a safeguard against corruption.
“There is very little transparency in Cyprus which can lead to money laundering, corruption, deals done under the table, nepotism, among others,” said researcher Orestis Tringides who was part of the Open Cyprus Project pushing for government transparency in Cyprus.
In the last year, the Open Cyprus team sent hundreds of requests for information to public bodies on both sides of the divide in order to analyse their ability to respond – 75 per cent of those requests were ignored.
Across the island there is almost no online information on finances, procurements, contracts, budgets, salaries, subsidies, meeting minutes, evaluations, decisions and policies for public bodies, the Open Cyprus team found.
The CPI’s data was gathered between December 2009 and September 2011. Because ranking is relative to participating countries, scores are not comparable over years. Transparency International used 17 different data sources from 13 institutions. In the case of Cyprus, five data sources were used: the 2010 and 2011 world economic forum surveys; the Economist Intelligence unit country risk assessment; Global Insight Country Risk Ratings; and political risk services’ international country risk guide.
The CPI, done by civic society Transparency International gathers perceptions of experts on corruption – understood as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain - by politicians, state officials and civil servants.
The CPI ranks countries from 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (very clean).
Cyprus was considered relatively non-corrupt having scored 6.3 and ranking 30th globally and 16th out of 32 countries in its region (EU and west Europe).
Within the EU, Bulgaria ranked last (3.3) followed by Greece (3.4) and Romania (3.6) and Italy (3.9).
Denmark and Finland topped the EU rank with 9.4 followed by Sweden (9.3).
Globally, only New Zealand did better with 9.5.
The UK was 16th globally and 10th in the EU with a score of 7.8; the USA scored 7.1; Australia scored 8.8; Canada got 8.7.
Most of Asia, Latin America and Africa were considered corrupt.
Emerging economies such as Russia, Brazil and China had low scores of 2.4, 3.8 and 3.6 respectively.
New entrants North Korea and Somalia were at the bottom of the list with 1.0 followed Myanmar and Afghanistan (1.5).
Although Cyprus ranked well, one of the issues raised by the CPI report was that of transparency, or access to public information, as a safeguard against corruption.
“There is very little transparency in Cyprus which can lead to money laundering, corruption, deals done under the table, nepotism, among others,” said researcher Orestis Tringides who was part of the Open Cyprus Project pushing for government transparency in Cyprus.
In the last year, the Open Cyprus team sent hundreds of requests for information to public bodies on both sides of the divide in order to analyse their ability to respond – 75 per cent of those requests were ignored.
Across the island there is almost no online information on finances, procurements, contracts, budgets, salaries, subsidies, meeting minutes, evaluations, decisions and policies for public bodies, the Open Cyprus team found.
The CPI’s data was gathered between December 2009 and September 2011. Because ranking is relative to participating countries, scores are not comparable over years. Transparency International used 17 different data sources from 13 institutions. In the case of Cyprus, five data sources were used: the 2010 and 2011 world economic forum surveys; the Economist Intelligence unit country risk assessment; Global Insight Country Risk Ratings; and political risk services’ international country risk guide.
Source: www.transparency.org
December 2, 2011
December 2, 2011