DOHA: Qatar retained its position as the least corrupt country in the Arab world and raised its ranking by an impressive four points in the Corruption Perception Index 2015 issued by the Transparency International (TI) yesterday. Qatar is ranked 22nd in the Index, up by four points from last year’s 26th position. The index covers perceptions of public sector corruption in 168 countries.
Denmark took the top spot for the second year running, followed by Finland and Sweden ,with North Korea and Somalia the worst performers.
Among the GCC states, the UAE came next to Qatar at 23, followed by Oman (45), Kuwait (49), Bahrain (51) and Saudi Arabia (52).
Top performers share high levels of press freedom; access to budget information so the public knows where money comes from and how it is spent; high levels of integrity among people in power; and judiciaries that don’t differentiate between rich and poor, and that are truly independent from other parts of government.
In addition to conflict and war, poor governance, weak public institutions like police and the judiciary, and a lack of independence in the media characterise the lowest ranked countries.
Once again, three of the bottom 10 countries in this year’s index are from the conflict-torn MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region – Iraq, Libya and Sudan. Kuwait, Jordan and Saudi Arabia all improved slightly on last year’s performance. Most countries have maintained the same poor score, and some (Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Syria and Tunisia) have deteriorated slightly.
The Peninsula
