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Bangladesh records its lowest-ever rating, 23, in Corruption Perception Index
Published : 11 Feb 2025, 02:27 PM
Bangladesh has slipped two notches down to 151st out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index after registering its lowest ever rating score in 2024.
The South Asian nation's score fell from 24 in 2023 to 23 in 2024, which means the public sector is perceived to be more corrupt than it was a year ago.
Transparency International Bangladesh's Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman addressed the current state of corruption in the country at a media briefing on Tuesday.
He mentioned that Bangladesh was on the verge of “losing control” over corruption.
“The country's score is lower than that of authoritarian nations… even the interim government's term formed part of the evaluation,” he said.
The corruption rating for all the South Asian countries dropped compared with last year, according to the index released by the Berlin-based organisation.
Among the South Asian nations, only Afghanistan and Myanmar fared worse than Bangladesh, slipping to 17 and 16 respectively.
Pakistan scored 27, two points fewer than 2023, Nepal 34, a point down, Sri Lanka scored 32, minus two points from last year, and India 38, which scored a point fewer than 2023.
On Tuesday, a Transparency International report mentioned that “Asia Pacific leaders were failing to stop corruption amid an escalating climate crisis”.
“In Bangladesh, one of the largest recipients of climate finance, research shows that desperately-needed climate funds are vulnerable to embezzlement and other corruption, and can be lost to irregularities,” the report said.
“Increased transparency and improved accountability are vital to protect these life-saving funds for the benefit of millions of the nation’s inhabitants,” it added.
After years of stagnation, the 2024 average score for the region has dropped by one point to 44, according to Transparency International.
The CPI index is the most widely used global corruption ranking in the world and measures the perception of how corrupt each country’s public sector is according to experts and businesspeople.
It relies on 13 independent data sources and uses a scale of zero to 100, where zero is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.
Since 2012, Bangladesh’s CPI score has hovered in the mid to high 20s, achieving its best score of 28 in 2017. Its previous lowest score on the index was 24 which it achieved in 2023 while registering 25 in 2014, 2015, and 2022.
Iftekharuzzaman said countries with lower corruption levels were providing opportunities for people to buy property and invest, fuelling the demand for money laundering.
“Laundering could be curbed if those countries raised questions [about the source of the funds]. But the money being siphoned out of Bangladesh is going to nations that rank much higher than us [in corruption control],” he added.
“For instance, funds from our country are being laundered to Singapore, which ranks third [on the corruption index]. We are responsible for this corruption and laundering. We're the ones who’re failing to stop it.”
Since Aug 5, incidents of extortion and illegal occupation had become widespread, according to him.
“The people in charge may have been replaced but the conduct remains the same,” Iftekharuzzaman said.
He stressed that implementing recommendations for Anti-Corruption Commission reforms could improve Bangladesh’s score.
But that would depend on the effectiveness of the institutions and reforming political and bureaucratic systems, he added.
“The ACC took up numerous cases and is trying to carry out its responsibilities effectively. We will be able to tell how effective these efforts have been after further analysis.”
As corruption grows in scale and complexity, over two thirds of countries now score below the mid-point on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, or CPI - with huge and potentially devastating implications for global climate action, according to the report.
Denmark ranked as the least corrupt country on the index, with a score of 90, followed by Finland, Singapore, New Zealand and Luxembourg.
