Bangladesh 2nd most corrupt in S Asia again: TI

Bangladesh has ranked 12th in the list of most corrupt among 180 countries, deteriorating from last year’s 13th place, in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2022 of Transparency International (TI).

As part of CPI’s global launching, the Berlin-based global graft watchdog’s Bangladesh chapter TIB unveiled the findings at a press conference at its office in Dhaka on Tuesday.

Bangladesh scored 25 in the latest index. The score was 26 in the past four years. The CPI uses a scale of 0 to 100, which means 100 is very clean and 0 is the most corrupt.

Among the eight South Asian countries, Bangladesh continues to be the second-most corrupt country in this region with Afghanistan earning the top spot by scoring 24. Afghanistan scored 16 in 2021.

Bangladesh also ranked as the fourth most corrupt among 31 countries in the Asia Pacific region. The nation came in 147th from the top among 180 countries, the same as in 2021. From the bottom, it ranked 12th.

Of the other South Asian countries, Bhutan ranked 25th with a score of 68; Maldives and India ranked 85th jointly with 40; Sri Lanka ranked 101st with 36; Nepal ranked 110th with 34; Pakistan ranked 140th with 27; and Afghanistan ranked 150th with 24.

“A country with a score below 50 is considered to be in serious corruption and Bangladesh is in this group. A total of 123 countries have scored below 50. If we make a comparison, we can see that corruption in Bangladesh deteriorated in the past decade,” said TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman.

According to the index, political and government positions treated as a licence for abuse of power, state institutions increasingly under political and bureaucratic influence and no effective action against endless exposure of money laundering were considered as the factors behind Bangladesh’s disappointing result.

The deficit of effectiveness of the Anti-Corruption Commission and other relevant authorities to set an example of corruption being a
punishable offence especially continued impunity instead of accountability of the “big fish,” also evaluate as a factor of deterioration while widespread public sector corruption further intensified around Covid-19 response, including public contracting and distribution.

Democracy has also been declining in the region, including in populous countries like India, the Philippines and Bangladesh, said the
report.

Since 2012, Bangladesh’s CPI score had remained in the mid to high 20s, with the best score being 28 in 2017. The country’s lowest CPI score was 25, which it achieved in 2014 and 2015, and now in 2022.

According to CPI 2022, corruption reduction was seen in 49 countries as their scores increased while deterioration was seen in 73 countries. Positions of 58 countries remained unchanged in terms of scoring.

Somalia ranked as the most corrupt country in the world while South Sudan and Syria ranked second jointly. Also, Venezuela ranked third, Yemen fourth, and Burundi, Guinea, Haiti, Libya and North Korea jointly ranked five.

Meanwhile, Denmark ranked top as the world’s least corrupt country with a score of 90.

Finland and New Zealand came in second jointly with 87, Norway in third with 84, Sweden and Singapore jointly in fourth with 83 and Switzerland in fifth position with a score of 82.

Transparency International prepares the CPI report annually on 180 countries and territories around the world by their perceived levels of public sector corruption. The global average score is 43.