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News from the Caribbean as of
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Haiti among most corrupt countries according to latest report
Tuesday, November 7, 2006
BERLIN, Germany (AFP): Haiti, Myanmar and Iraq are perceived as the most corrupt countries in the world while Finland is seen as the cleanest, a respected global graft watchdog reported Monday.
Transparency International (TI) said in its annual Corruption Perceptions Index, covering 163 countries that some of the world's poorest nations were also the most sleaze-ridden, undermining international development efforts.
"Corruption traps millions in poverty," the chairwoman of the Berlin-based non-governmental organisation, Huguette Labelle, said in a statement.
"Despite a decade of progress in establishing anti-corruption laws and regulations, today's results indicate that much remains to be done before we see meaningful improvements in the lives of the world's poorest citizens."
On the 2005 list, the worst levels in perceived corruption were in Chad, Bangladesh and Turkmenistan.
The index score relates to perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business people and country analysts and ranges between zero, which is highly corrupt, and 10, which is very clean.
TI said that corruption was shockingly rampant worldwide with almost three-quarters of the countries in the report scoring below five, including all low-income countries and all but two African states.
The worst levels of corruption were seen in Haiti, which scored just 1.8, followed by Myanmar, Iraq and Guinea, which tied at 1.9.
Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan and Equatorial Guinea rounded out the bottom 10 countries.
Wealthy democracies topped the list, confirming the link between anti-sleaze efforts and prosperity.
Finland, Iceland and New Zealand scored a near-perfect 9.6, followed by Denmark (9.5), Singapore (9.4), Sweden (9.2) and Switzerland (9.1).
Norway, Australia and the Netherlands also made the top 10.
TI noted that while industrialised nations scored high on this year's index, corruption scandals continued to rock many of them.
A significant worsening in perceived levels of corruption was seen in Brazil, Cuba, Israel, Jordan, Laos, Seychelles, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia and the United States, which dropped to 20th place from 17th last year, with a score of 7.3.
Algeria, Czech Republic, India, Japan, Latvia, Lebanon, Mauritius, Paraguay, Slovenia, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uruguay showed a marked drop in graft, TI said.
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