The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Bangladesh ranked 7th from below among 180 countries included in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), 2007 this year, according to Transparency International (TI), the Berlin-based international anti-corruption watchdog

Transparency International, Bangladesh (TIB) yesterday afternoon provided the index report at a press conference at the Jatiya Press Club. TIB Chairman Prof Dr Muzaffar Ahmad and Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman, among others, addressed the press conference.

The TI released the CPI report yesterday allover the world that provided, in a scale of 0-10, international ranking of countries in terms of perceived degree of prevalence of political and administrative corruption.

Bangladesh's ranking has improved from the last year's 3rd to the 7th this year. Earlier, Bangladesh was placed at the botom of the list for the fifth successive years from 2001 to 2006.

According to the CPI, Denmark, Finland and New Zealand jointly ranked 1st as the least corrupt countries in the world scoring each 9.4.

On the other hand, Somalia and Myanmar have jointly ranked 1st, as the most corrupt countries.

The results show that Bangladesh has scored 2.0 and ranked 7th from below, which is the 162nd among 180 countries included in the index this year. In the same position with the same score as Bangladesh are five countries - Cambodia, Central African Republic, Papua New Guinea, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

Iraq and Haiti are in the 2nd and 3rd positions respectively, Uzbekistan and Tonga are jointly in the 4th position followed by Sudan, Chad and Afghanistan (jointly 5th) while Democratic Republic of Congo, Equitorial Guinea, Laos and Guinea have ranked 6th.

Among the Asian countries, Singapore topped the list scoring 9.3 along with Sweden.

At the press conference, TIB Chairman, however, mentioned that various institutional reform measures initiated by the present government, including reform of the Anti-Corruption Commission, Election Commission, Public Service Commission, separation of the judiciary as well as ratification of the UN Convention against Corruption would result positively to curb corruption.

The TIB Chairman mentioned that the corruption trend in the developed countries is less than that of the developing countries as the policies of the developed countries are beter and their civil society is also more independent

He, however, said that behind the corruption in the developing countries, there are influences from the developed countries and multinational companies.

He mentioned that it is not possible to curb corruption without the joint efforts of the developing and developed countries.

Meanwhile, Anti-Corruption Commission Chairman Lt Gen (Retd) Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury yesterday said the country's corruption scenario would not change overnight and whatever the score recorded in the corruption perception index of Transparency International, his Commission's fight against graft would continue.

"I don't yet know the details. Let me get the details before I make any comment," he told a news agency over telephone when his reaction was sought on the Transparency International report on the corruption index.