DUSHANBE, September 24, 2008, Asia-Plus — Transparency International’s (IT) 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), launched on September 23, ranks Tajikistan 151st among 180 countries by perceived level of corruption.
TI’s CPI measures the perceived levels of public-sector corruption in a given country and is a composite index, drawing on different expert and business surveys. The 2008 CPI scores 180 countries (the same number as the 2007 CPI) on a scale from zero (highly corrupt) to ten (highly clean).
Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden share the highest score at 9.3, followed immediately by Singapore at 9.2. Bringing up the rear is Somalia at 1.0, slightly trailing Iraq and Myanmar at 1.3 and Haiti at 1.4.
While score changes in the Index are not rapid, statistically significant changes are evident in certain countries from the high to the low end of the CPI. Looking at source surveys included in both the 2007 and 2008 Index, significant declines can be seen in the scores of Bulgaria, Burundi, Maldives, Norway and the United Kingdom.
Similarly, statistically significant improvements over the last year can be identified in Albania, Cyprus, Georgia, Mauritius, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, South Korea, Tonga and Turkey.
According to the 2008 CPI, among the CIS states Armenia and Moldova have the highest scores, sharing the 109th place followed by Ukraine, ranked 134th, and Kazakhstan, ranked 145th.
Russia was also listed among the countries with high level of corruption, being ranked 147th. Tajikistan and Belarus shared the 151st place, Azerbaijan was ranked 158th, while Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan shared the 166th place.
The annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), first released in 1995, is the best known of TI’s tools. It has been widely credited with putting TI and the issue of corruption on the international policy agenda. The CPI ranks 180 countries by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.
