Ghana dropped seven places on annual corruption list by watchdog, worsening its reputation. North Korea & Somalia are the world's most corrupt, New Zealand is the least.
In a blow to Ghana's reputation, the rampant corruption within the country has now shown up more substantially in the annual country-by-country rankings on corruption, with Ghana sliding behind seven countries.
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The Ghana public sector is now perceived to be as corrupt as it was when the National Democratic Congress(NDC) took power in 2009, according to a global index released on December 1, 2011.
Transparency International’s (TI) annual index of Corruption Perception ranks 183 nations on a scale of 0 to a best score of 10. Ghana’s score fell from 4.1 last year to 3.9 this year, bringing its international ranking down from 62nd least corrupt to 69th. Ghana’s score has been slowly improving since 2006, with this year’s downgrade the most dramatic. Ghana's drop in the country rankings can partly be attributed to the addition of some four more countries and territories to the list - North Korea, the Bahamas, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname.
Ghana's Record over the years
- 2011 Score: 3.9 69th/183 countries
- 2010 Score: 4.1 62/180
- 2009 Score: 3.9 69/180
- 2008 Score: 3.9 67/180
- 2007 Score: 3.7 69/179
- 2006 Score: 3.3 70/163
This year, two thirds of countries covered by the index were given scores less than 5 - which means they are considered significantly corrupt.
The most corrupt places in the world are not the most surprising. Unstable governments, often with a legacy of conflict, continue to dominate the bottom rungs of the CPI. Afghanistan and Myanmar share second to last place with a score of 1.5, with Somalia and North Korea - measured for the first time - coming in last with a score of 1.
The world's most peaceful countries score the best. In the 2010 CPI, New Zealand is top with a score of 9.5, followed by Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Singapore. .
The Index, which is closely watched by investors, economists, and civil society campaigners, is based on expert assessments and data from 17 surveys from 13 independent institutions, covering issues such as access to information, bribery of public officials, kickbacks in public procurement, and the enforcement of anti-corruption laws. While critics note that measuring perceptions of corruption is not the same as measuring corruption itself, the latter is almost impossible to do - as the corrupt are usually keen to cover up their tracks, hard data on graft and bribery is notoriously difficult to come by.
