Bangladesh worse off on perception index as corruption ‘flourishes’ amid pandemic

Transparency International has ranked Bangladesh 12th among the most corruption-riddled countries, saying the malaise ‘flourishes’ in the form of ‘bribery in health clinics to misappropriated aid’ during the coronavirus pandemic.

The country has dropped two notches on the Berlin-based organisation’s Corruption Perception Index 2020 with the score unchanged at 26. From the top, Bangladesh is 146th.

“This is frustrating,” said Iftekharuzzman, executive director of Transparency International, Bangladesh or TIB, at a virtual press conference on Thursday.

He said Bangladesh has not been able to change its score since 2012, although it improved one notch in the 2019 index. He mentioned that Bangladesh is ahead of only war-ravaged Afghanistan, which has a score of 19, among the eight countries in South Asia. In the Asia Pacific region, Bangladesh is ahead of only three countries.

The index, which ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople, uses a scale of zero to 100, where zero is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.

Like previous years, more than two-thirds of countries scored below 50 on the 2020 CPI, with an average score of just 43. The data shows that despite some progress, most countries still fail to tackle corruption effectively, Transparency International said.

But Iftekharuzzaman acknowledged that Bangladesh has made some progress in tackling corruption after it was billed the most corrupt country for several years two decades ago.

He believes Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s firm stance against graft helped Bangladesh to lift itself out of the bottom of the index.

“But corruption and impunity are rising. Conflict of interest is there in policymaking while politics is considered a tool to achieve personal assets,” he added.

The top countries on the CPI are Denmark and New Zealand, with scores of 88, followed by Finland, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland, with scores of 85 each.

The bottom countries are South Sudan and Somalia, with scores of 12 each, followed by Syria (14), Yemen (15) and Venezuela (15).

In South Asia, Bhutan scored the highest, 68, ranking 24th from the top even ahead of the United States at 25.

The Maldives made huge improvement to reach 75th from 130th. India scored 40, losing one point while Pakistan also lost one point to score 31.

Transparency International said “serious departures” from democratic norms were a core factor in driving the United States to its lowest in eight years on the index in 2020.

Its annual report on business leaders' perceptions of corruption gave the United States a score of 67 out of 100, down from 69 in 2019. It cited weak oversight of the country's $1 trillion COVID-19 relief package.

PANDEMIC

Corruption poses a critical threat to citizens’ lives and livelihoods, especially when combined with a public health emergency, the corruption watchdog said.

“Clean public sectors correlate with greater investment in health care.”

It noted that Uruguay, which has the highest CPI score in Latin America (71), invests heavily in health care and has a robust epidemiological surveillance system. This  has aided the country’s response to COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, like yellow fever and Zika. 

In contrast, Bangladesh scores just 26 and invests little in health care while corruption “flourishes during COVID-19, ranging from bribery in health clinics to misappropriated aid”.

Corruption is also pervasive in the procurement of medical supplies, according to Transparency International.

Countries with higher corruption levels also tend to be the worst violators of rule of law and democratic institutions during the COVID-19 crisis, it said. 

These include Philippines (34), where the response to COVID-19 has been characterised by major attacks on human rights and media freedom.

“COVID-19 is not just a health and economic crisis. It is a corruption crisis. And one that we are currently failing to manage,” said Delia Ferreira Rubio, chair of Transparency International.

“The past year has tested governments like no other in memory, and those with higher levels of corruption have been less able to meet the challenge. But even those at the top of the CPI must urgently address their role in perpetuating corruption at home and abroad,” she added.