Ghana has dropped four places in terms of scores in the 22nd Annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI) released by anti-graft body Transparency International released on Wednesday, 25 January 2017.

A statement issued by Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the local chapter of TI said: “The CPI 2016 scored Ghana 43 points out of a possible clean score of 100 and ranked the country 70 out of 176 countries included in this year’s index.” In the sub-Saharan region, the country ranked 9th.

GII said the drop in Ghana’s performance could be attributed to corruption scandals that bordered on the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Authority (GYEEDA), Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA), GHS144 million GRA/Subah Scandal, the infamous GHS51 million judgment debt saga and the Smartty's bus rebranding scandal.

“The CPI 2016 used nine (9) out of the (13) data sources of independent institutions with a high level of credibility to compute the index for Ghana. The sources and their corresponding scores include the World Bank Country Policy and Institutional Assessment, African Development Bank, Bertelsmann Foundation Transformation, World Economic Forum and World Justice Project. The rest are Economic Intelligence Unit, Political Risk Service International Country Risk Guide, Varieties of Democracy and Global Insight.

“This year, the CPI shows that Ghana’s performance has dropped by 4 percentage points from its 2015 score of 47 points. This score is the lowest in Ghana’s CPI scores since 2012 when CPI scores became comparable.

“It is worthy to note that, although Ghana performed better than several other African countries, including Lesotho and Burkina Faso, Ghana also performed below eight other African countries (Botswana - 60, Cape Verde - 59, Mauritius – 54, Rwanda – 54, Namibia – 52, Sao Tome and Principe – 46, Senegal – 45 and South Africa - 45).

“The 2016 CPI score indicates that, in spite of Ghana’s efforts at fighting corruption the canker is still a serious problem. Ghana’s score of 43 points is a likely reflection of the many exposés of public sector corruption in the last few years including the police recruitment scam, Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Authority (GYEEDA) scandal, Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) scandal, GHc 144 million GRA/Subah Scandal, the infamous Woyome’s GHC 51 million judgment debt saga and the Smartty's bus rebranding deal. This is likely compounded by government perceived inability to fully resolve high profile corruption cases,” the statement said.

This year’s index ranked 176 countries/territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption. The index draws on 13 surveys covering views of business people and country experts. The Corruption Perceptions Index is the leading global indicator of perceived public sector corruption, offering a yearly snapshot of the relative degree of corruption by ranking countries from all over the globe.

THE AFRICAN PICTURE

In Africa, Botswana once again was first with a score of 60, ranking 35 globally and followed by Cape Verde with a score of 59 and ranking 38 globally. Third and fourth was occupied by Mauritius and Rwanda with both scoring 54 and ranked 50 globally. Namibia and Sao Tome and Principe scored 52 and 46 respectively and ranked 53 and 62 globally but fifth and sixth in Africa. Senegal and South Africa both scored 45 and ranked 64 globally. Overall, only five out 46 African countries that qualified to be captured by the index s scored above 50.

Many African countries dominated the bottom of the CPI with Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Libya, Guinea Bissau, Eritrea and Angola scoring 10, 11, 14, 14, 16, 18 and 18 with rankings of 176, 175, 170, 170, 168, 164 and 164 respectively.

GLOBAL PERFORMANCE

Denmark and New Zealand performed best with scores of 90, closely followed by Finland (89) and Sweden (88). Although no country is free of corruption, the countries at the top share characteristics of high standards in open government, press freedom, civil liberties and independent judicial systems.

For the tenth year running, Somalia is the worst performer on the index, this year scoring only 10. South Sudan is second to bottom with a score of 11, followed by North Korea (12) and Syria (13). Countries at the bottom of the index are also characterised by widespread impunity for corruption, poor governance and weak institutions.

This year more countries declined in the index than improved, showing the need for urgent action. Countries in troubled regions, particularly in the Middle East, have seen the most substantial drops this year.