Namibia slipping on graft

CORRUPTION is making inroads in Namibia, according to an international report released in Germany yesterday.

According to Transparency International (TI), a civil society organisation which aims to fight corruption globally, Namibia has dropped eight places – to 55 – on an international corruption index this year, a ranking it shares with the South American country of Costa Rica. Namibia was ranked at number 47 in 2005.Some 163 countries were screened for the 2006 index, with Finland, Iceland and New Zealand topping the list, followed by Denmark, Singapore and Sweden.Botswana again came out on top of the list of African countries, scoring 37th place, followed by Mauritius (42), South Africa and Tunisia (both 51), followed by Namibia.Transparency International’s scale is based on the perceptions of the degree of corruption by businesspeople and country analysts.Countries are ranked out of 10, and anything below five indicates “serious” perceived levels of corruption, and anything below 3 “rampant,” the agency said.Namibia now has a confidence score of 4,1 points, down from 4,3 points in 2005.The anti-corruption watchdog provides no explanations for why individual countries had worse ratings this year, but said that generally a strong correlation existed between corruption and poverty, with a concentration of impoverished states at the bottom of the ranking.Countries with a significant worsening in perceived levels of corruption include: Brazil, Cuba, Israel, Jordan, Laos, Seychelles, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia and the United States.Countries with a significant improvement in perceived levels of corruption include: Algeria, Czech Republic, India, Japan, Latvia, Lebanon, Mauritius, Paraguay, Slovenia, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uruguay.Nearly three-quarters of the 163 countries ranked worse and were perceived as suffering serious corruption, while in nearly half the countries corruption is seen as “rampant”.Iraq was considered a “failed state”, which dropped from place 137 last year to second-last (160) together with Myanmar and Guinea, wile Haiti is at the bottom of the list.”Corruption traps millions in poverty,” the agency’s international chairman 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.”Several former Soviet republics fared relatively well, with Estonia ranking 24th with a 6,7 rating, Lithuania with 4,8 in 46th place and Latvia with 4,7 in 49th position.Estonia’s place was the highest of the 10 mostly former communist countries that joined the EU in 2004.In contrast, the perception of corruption in Russia was a dismal 2,5, putting it in a 121st place tie with several other nations including Rwanda and Swaziland.Even Kazakhstan fared better, scoring 2,6.Faring the best were Finland, Iceland and New Zealand, in a first-place tie with rankings of 9,6.Namibia was ranked at number 47 in 2005.Some 163 countries were screened for the 2006 index, with Finland, Iceland and New Zealand topping the list, followed by Denmark, Singapore and Sweden.Botswana again came out on top of the list of African countries, scoring 37th place, followed by Mauritius (42), South Africa and Tunisia (both 51), followed by Namibia.Transparency International’s scale is based on the perceptions of the degree of corruption by businesspeople and country analysts.Countries are ranked out of 10, and anything below five indicates “serious” perceived levels of corruption, and anything below 3 “rampant,” the agency said.Namibia now has a confidence score of 4,1 points, down from 4,3 points in 2005.The anti-corruption watchdog provides no explanations for why individual countries had worse ratings this year, but said that generally a strong correlation existed between corruption and poverty, with a concentration of impoverished states at the bottom of the ranking.Countries with a significant worsening in perceived levels of corruption include: Brazil, Cuba, Israel, Jordan, Laos, Seychelles, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia and the United States.Countries with a significant improvement in perceived levels of corruption include: Algeria, Czech Republic, India, Japan, Latvia, Lebanon, Mauritius, Paraguay, Slovenia, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uruguay.Nearly three-quarters of the 163 countries ranked worse and were perceived as suffering serious corruption, while in nearly half the countries corruption is seen as “rampant”.Iraq was considered a “failed state”, which dropped from place 137 last year to second-last (160) together with Myanmar and Guinea, wile Haiti is at the bottom of the list.”Corruption traps millions in poverty,” the agency’s international chairman 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.”Several former Soviet republics fared relatively well, with Estonia ranking 24th with a 6,7 rating, Lithuania with 4,8 in 46th place and Latvia with 4,7 in 49th position.Estonia’s place was the highest of the 10 mostly former communist countries that joined the EU in 2004.In contrast, the perception of corruption in Russia was a dismal 2,5, putting it in a 121st place tie with several other nations including Rwanda and Swaziland.Even Kazakhstan fared better, scoring 2,6.Faring the best were Finland, Iceland and New Zealand, in a first-place tie with rankings of 9,6.