Guyana has received a lower ranking for public sector corruption, which the local transparency watchdog said does not bode well for investor confidence as it urged reforms to ensure greater accountability by public officials.
According to the 2011 Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perceptions Index, released yesterday, Guyana edged closer to a “highly corrupt” profile with a ranking of 134 out of 183 countries that were surveyed on perceived levels of public sector corruption. Last year, Guyana was ranked 116 out of the 178 countries that were surveyed, representing a slight improvement over the year before.
Based on five surveys, the country received a score of 2.5 out of 10—compared with 2.7 out of 10 last year—on a scale that measures corruption from 0, where a country is perceived as “highly corrupt,” to 10, where a country is perceived as “very clean.”
“Guyana’s ranking should be a cause for concern,” Nadia Sagar, President of the Transparency Institute Guyana Inc said in a statement. “Corruption is institutionalized and pervasive. Moving from 116 in 2010 to 134 in 2011 is indicative of a perceived decline in the integrity of public institutions and public officials. This does not augur well for investor confidence in the country among other things,” she added.
Transparency Institute Guyana is a national contact of TI.
TI, which noted that the vast majority of the 183 countries and territories assessed score below 5, explained that a country’s rank indicates its position relative to the other countries/territories included in the index. At 134, Guyana is ranked alongside Cameroon, Eritrea, Lebanon, the Maldives, Nicaragua, Niger, Pakistan and Sierra Leone. It is also the second lowest ranking CARICOM state, with only Haiti at 175 behind. Barbados, which received a score of 7.8, was the highest ranking CARICOM state at 16, followed by St Lucia, with a 7.0 score and a ranking of 25; Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, with a 5.8 score and a ranking of 36; Dominica, with a score of 5.2 and a ranking of 44; Jamaica, with a 3.3 score and a ranking of 86; Trinidad and Tobago, with a 3.2 score and a ranking of 91; and Suriname, with a 3.0 score and a ranking of 100.
New Zealand received the highest “very clean” ranking, with a score of 9.5, while North Korea and Somalia had the highest “highly corrupt” ranking, with both scoring 1.0.
As a result of Guyana’s ranking, Transparency Insti-tute Guyana is calling on all citizens to adopt “a zero tolerance approach to corruption,” however it may manifest itself, Sagar noted. “Politi-cians and public servants must be held to the highest possible standards of integrity in public life,” she said, while calling for the appointment of an Ombudsman, the reconstitution on the Integrity Commission and the enactment of anti–corruption legislation.
Transparency Institute Guyana, she said, is also calling for the adoption of the constitutional convention of Individual Ministerial Res-ponsibility, which she noted is followed by many countries with the Westminster system like Guyana. This responsibility renders individual cabinet ministers accountable for the actions of their ministries, she explained.
“We believe these measures will go a long way towards the eradication of corruption in the public sector,” Sagar said.
The surveys used to calculate Guyana’s ranking were Global Insight’s Country Risk Ratings, Political Risk Services International Country Risk Guide, the World Bank’s (WB) Country Performance and Institutional Assessment and the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Executive Opinion Survey (EOS) for 2010 and 2011.
The 2011 index, TI said, draws on assessments and opinion surveys carried out by independent and reputable institutions. “These surveys and assessments include questions related to the bribery of public officials, kickbacks in public procurement, embezzlement of public funds, and the effectiveness of public sector anti-corruption efforts,” it explained, adding that perceptions are used because corruption is to a great extent a hidden activity that is difficult to measure. “Over time, perceptions have proved to be a reliable estimate of corruption,” it added.
