18 November 1999
(99 countries ranked in survey of business leaders, risk analysts) (520) By Eric Green Washington File Staff Writer Washington -- Transparency International, the Berlin-based organization devoted to curbing world corruption, has released its fifth annual "Corruption Perceptions Index" (CPI) survey of corruption levels in 99 countries, based on the perceptions of business people, risk analysts and the general public. The group, whose members include former presidents Jimmy Carter of the United States and Oscar Arias Sanchez of Costa Rica, ranked nations on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (essentially clean). The survey showed that this year, as in 1998, Denmark heads the CPI rankings with an essentially corrupt-free score of 10. Finishing second was Finland, followed by New Zealand, Sweden, and Canada. The United States ranked 18th, with a score of 7.5, followed by Chile at 6.9 and Israel at 6.8. Transparency International chairman Peter Eigen cautioned that though many very poor countries finished in the lowest positions on the CPI, "it would be wrong to call these countries the most corrupt in the world." He added, however, that governments of countries with low CPI scores "need to do far more to publicly acknowledge the problems, to confront the issues, to subject the corrupt companies and the corrupt officials to prosecution and to earn public confidence by their anti-bribery policies. Some countries have begun to take such action, but have initiated reforms so recently that these are not reflected in the polls on which the CPI is based." Among countries in the Americas, Costa Rica finished at 32, Peru was 40, Uruguay 42, Brazil 45, El Salvador 49, Jamaica 50, Mexico 61, Guatemala 68, Nicaragua 70, Argentina 71, Colombia 72, Venezuela 78, Bolivia 81, Ecuador 82, Paraguay 91, and Honduras 94. The group, which has received funding from the former U.S. Information Agency, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the United Nations, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, various foundations (including the Ford and MacArthur Foundations), 70 multinational corporations, and governments from around the world, said in a statement that it did not have sufficient credible data on more than 80 countries that were excluded from the survey. The survey's author, Johann Graf Lambsdorff, said the data in the CPI "may disappoint some governments, especially in countries where distinct efforts to curb corruption have been initiated. To be sure, the CPI may not capture very recent anti-corruption actions in countries. We encourage policy-makers, the media and researchers to seek additional information to complement the CPI rankings before drawing final conclusions about the economic environment in individual countries." In a mission statement, the organization called corruption "one of the greatest challenges facing the contemporary world. It undermines good government, distorts public policy, leads to the misallocation of resources and harms ... private sector development. But most of all, corruption hurts those who can afford it least. Stamping out corruption is about improving the lives of men and women everywhere." (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.)