Uganda drops two places in global corruption ranking

By Taddeo Bwambale

Uganda has been ranked 142nd in the 2014 Global Corruption Perception Index released by Transparency International on Wednesday, dropping two places compared to last year.

The Global Corruption Perception Index ranks countries and territories based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be.

A country or territory’s score indicates the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).

Last year, Uganda was in 140th position, having dropped ten places from 130th in 2012. In the latest ranking, however, Uganda maintains a point score of 26, which is the same as last year.

The 2014 Index ranks Somalia as the worst among ten most corrupt countries, followed by North Korea, Sudan, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Libya and Eritrea.

Denmark is listed as the least corrupt country in the world, followed in order by New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Singapore, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Canada.

According to this year’s ranking, not one single country gets a perfect score and more than two-thirds score below 50, on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).

Berlin-based watchdog notes that countries are grappling with corruption, manifested through poorly equipped schools, counterfeit medicine and elections decided by money.

“Bribes and backroom deals don’t just steal resources from the most vulnerable-they undermine justice and economic development, and destroy public trust in government and leaders, the report says.

José Ugaz, the chair of Transparency International stated: “Countries at the bottom need to adopt radical anti-corruption measures in favour of their people. Countries at the top of the index should make sure they don’t export corrupt practices to underdeveloped countries.”