Fight against corruption working?
Ghana is Africa’s eight least corrupt (44^th most corrupt - for those who prefer the "cup half empty") nation, according to the Transparency international's (TI) Global Corruption Barometer for 2007.

Ghana ranked 69th out of 179 countries surveyed in the global Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for this year, a two step rise over last year when there were 15 countries less. (read)

Ghana received a score of 3.7 out of 10 on the CPI scale, indicating that corruption is perceived as a serious challenge in the country. However Ghana’s score was up 0.4 point from 2006, indicating that government’s fight against corruption might be working.

TI is a non-government organization committed to fighting corruption and its CPI relates to perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business people and country analysts, and ranges from scores of 10, which is "highly clean," and 0, which is "highly corrupt."

Last year, Ghana had her worst result in the past 10 years - at par with that in 1999, which was recorded when the Rawlings' administration was in power. This year’s result moves Ghana closer to her best performance which was in 2002 (see table below)

The 2007 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranked 52 African countries. Seven new countries were included in this year’s index: Cape Verde, Comoros, Djibouti, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Sao Tome and Principe, and Somalia.

Botswana is the cleanest African state ranked 38th in the world, with South Africa (43rd) and Cape Verde (49th) in the upper third. Sudan, Chad and Somalia were the worst placed Africa nations

The CPI results show that Africa is producing good results in the fight against corruption. Across Africa, countries including Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa and Swaziland scored significantly higher

Overall, corruption and lack of transparency clearly remain a serious challenge across the continent. Out of the 52 African countries included in the index, 36 scored below three, indicating that corruption is perceived as rampant and 14 scored between three and five indicating that corruption is perceived as a serious challenge. Only two African countries scored above five: Botswana and South Africa.

New Zealand, Denmark, Singapore, Finland and Sweden topped the world chart, while Iraq, Somalia, Myanmar made the bottom three

Corruption Perception Index 'progress report'

  Year  Rank/World  Rank/Africa CPI Score 
 2007   69/179       8/52       3.7 
 2006   70/163       4/44       3.3 
 2005   65/159       6/44       3.5 
 2004   65/146                  3.6 
 2003   72/133                  3.3 
 2002                           3.9 (BEST) 
 2001                           3.4 
 2000                           3.5 
 1999                           3.3