27 October 2010
BEIRUT: Corruption in Lebanon remains endemic with the country ranking 127th globally alongside Syria and the notoriously corrupt ex-Soviet country of Belarus, the advocacy group Transparency International (TI) said Tuesday.
Their 2010 edition of the annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI), which ranks 180 states in terms of perception of corruption in the public sector, sees Lebanon rise three places from last year, but fall from 2005 when it came 83rd out of a 158 countries.
Lebanon is considered to be more corrupt than Egypt, ranked 98th, and Morocco which came 85th, and is also worse off than Saudi Arabia now ranked 50th.
All three countries made slight improvement on last year, while Kuwait and Qatar, now on par with European standards, were singled out for praise by the organization for their progress in fighting corruption and introducing tougher legislation.
While the region has on the whole seen a slight upward trend, Jordan has dropped marginally in the ranking, and Iraq continues to perform abysmally, coming in 175th.
Conflict-ridden Somalia ranked last with a score of 1.1 out of 10.
Lebanon, which scored 2.5, is in the largest group of states – some 35.3 percent of the world total – that all scored between 2 and 2.9 on the corruption scale, falling well behind the developed world, which largely ranked 7 and upward.
The index draws on surveys conducted among the business community, inquiring into the frequency and scale of bribery of public officials, seen as a good indicator of corruption which happens in secret and is notoriously difficult to measure.
The method, however, has been called into question by the Lebanese Transparency Association (LTA), the national TI affiliate, which is calling for the methodology to be changed to more closely account for changes taking place on the ground.
“This is a perception index and does not necessarily account for changes which may not been fully noticed but that could well be having some effect,” LTA vice chairman Fadi Saab told The Daily Star.
“Presently we are optimistic and some positive changes have taken place, like the setting up of a good governance task force which pulls together civil society and the private sector, but we need to keep reminding people of the importance of acting quickly on this matter.
“Investment is at heart a matter of confidence and improving this has the potential to seriously improve the socio-economic situation in the country.”
A national corruption committee with the mandate to monitor and enforce anti-corruption laws is needed, as is the full enforcement of the United Nations convention against corruption, which is an important step and vital for transforming political rhetoric into action on the group, LTA said.
“Allowing corruption to continue is unacceptable; too many poor and vulnerable people continue to suffer its consequences around the world,” said TI chair, Huguette Labelle.
“We need to see more enforcement of existing rules and laws. There should be nowhere to hide for the corrupt or their money.”
But the UN convention alone is not a certain way of curbing the practice, and many developed countries that have adopted it in full have nonetheless seen their corruption rankings fall in light of the global worldwide recession.
Only some 16 countries are currently enforcing the convention, which includes preventing nationals from bribing foreign officials, in full. This sends a “wrong signal” about their commitment to eliminating the practice, TI said.
Countries that have been worst hit by the crisis seem to have deteriorated the most in terms of transparency, with the US, UK and Iceland all falling in the rankings over the last two years.
Copyright The Daily Star 2010.
