The Corruption Perception Index (CPI) published on Tuesday by the NGO Transparency International (TI) revealed that since 2017 the fight against corruption has been stagnant in the Americas.
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A) Yes, no country on the continent registered significant improvements in the last five years in the IT ranking, which measures the perception of corruption levels in the public sector on a scale from 0 to 100 (from the most corrupt country to the “cleanest”).
The American countries perceived as less corrupt in 2022 were Canada (74), Uruguay (74) and the United States (69), while, at the opposite end of the scale, were Venezuela (14), Haiti (17) and Nicaragua (19).
In addition, globally, more than two thirds of the 180 countries analyzed had a “serious problem” of corruption in 2022. and the average score (43 points) has remained unchanged for the 11th consecutive year, according to the Berlin-based NGO.
“Fragile governments fail to curb criminal networks, social conflict and violence, and some exacerbate threats to human rights by concentrating power under the guise of responding to insecurity,” said the TI president, Delia Ferreira Rubio, in relation to the Americas.
Fragile governments fail to stop criminal networks
For her part, the regional IT advisor for Latin America and the Caribbean, Luciana Torchiaro, explained to Efe that a common characteristic of all the countries in this region is that there are very few sanctions against those responsible for corruption.
“The judiciary is very slow and in many countries little independent. All of this contributes to this level of general stagnation that we are seeing,” says the expert.
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Three countries have fallen significantly on the scale in the last five years: Honduras (23), Haiti (17) and Nicaragua (19), which in 2022 fell to its historical minimum -since the creation of the CPI in 1995- as they did also Cuba (45) and Guatemala (24).
This Central American country fell one point in 2022, a year in which the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity released a public official accused of money laundering.
Guatemala is experiencing a decline in the fight against corruption “almost without precedent in the region,” said Torchiaro, who spoke of an “extremely worrying regression.”
“We have observed the total co-optation of the public ministry, of the justice institutions, by the elites that govern the country and even have relations with organized crime,” he said, recalling that several Guatemalan prosecutors are in exile and there are activists and imprisoned journalists.
The case of Nicaragua is also “extreme”, since the great corruption concentrated in figures of the Executive contributes to a “massive violation of rights” and anyone who dares to contradict the Government sees their life in danger, the expert remarked.
On the other hand, the NGO placed particular emphasis in its press release on the “volatile” situation in Brazil (38 points, the same as in 2021), caused by a combination of “corruption, authoritarianism and economic slowdown”.
Former President Jair Bolsonaro resorted to “corrupt maneuvers” to benefit political allies and dismantled anti-corruption structures, TI stressed, recalling that this month supporters of the far-right leader tried to disrupt the inauguration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva .
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The rise of the new government offers the opportunity to reverse this situation and promote the fight against corruption, Torchiaro pointed out in this regard, and ventured that an evolution in this direction would have the possibility of having a “positive impact” on the entire subcontinent.
In its statement, TI also made reference to the situation in Peru, where the riots that are taking place after the removal of former president Pedro Castillo after he tried to dissolve Parliament come on top of years of political instability in the country, which maintains the 36 points he had in 2021.
Finally, TI highlighted the expansion of drug trafficking in the Caribbean and the high levels of crime in Jamaica (44) and Trinidad and Tobago (42), where more than half of the population believed in 2019 that the police were corrupt.
world report
In 2022, the country with the highest perception of corruption was Somalia, with a score of 12 out of 100 (where 0 reflects the highest corruption), followed by South Sudan and Syria (13).
At the opposite extreme, leading the ranking as the “cleanest” country, is Denmark (90), close behind which are Finland and New Zealand (87).
In the last five years, only eight countries have improved their score significantly: Ireland (77), South Korea (63), Armenia (46), Vietnam (42), Maldives (40), Moldova (39), Angola (33) and Uzbekistan (31).
In this period, ten countries have suffered significant declines, with Luxembourg (77) leading the way, followed by Canada (74), the United Kingdom (73), Austria (71), Malaysia (47), Mongolia (33), Pakistan ( 27), Honduras (23), Nicaragua (19) and Haiti (17).
In addition, in the last year, 26 countries have fallen to historical lows since the creation of the index in 1995, including Qatar (58), Guatemala (24) and the United Kingdom (73).
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TI points out that the world is less and less peaceful and that there is a clear link between corruption and violence, which feed on each other as part of a “vicious circle”.
Thus, in Russia (28 points), which launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 (33), “kleptocrats have amassed immense fortunes by pledging loyalty to President Vladimir Putin in exchange for lucrative government contracts and protecting themselves.” their economic interests”, says TI in a press release.
On the contrary, Ferreira Rubio pointed out, in Ukraine the anti-corruption institutions are working even in the middle of the war, as the investigation of fraud with food acquisitions for the Army shows.
In South Sudan, in the context of a serious humanitarian crisis and after decades of conflict, a network of corrupt politicians linked to the president’s family committed fraud last year with funds intended to help the population.
In view of all the above, the NGO urged governments to strengthen institutional control mechanisms to reduce the danger of corruption, to guarantee the
information transparency, to limit undue influences from the private sector and to combat transnational corruption.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from EFE
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