(Trinidad Express) In a bid to capitalise on access to new sources of information available, Transparency International has revised the methodology which it uses to calculate the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of countries around the world.
The new methodology, which ranks countries on a scale of 1-100 (with 100 being most corrupt), will take effect in the annual CPI, which will be announced on December 5.
The CPI is an indicator of public sector corruption.
Last year, T&T ranked 91 on the CPI out of 183 countries surveyed, which was a fall in rankings attributed to Government’s failure to enact procurement legislation and National Security Minister Jack Warner’s continued presence in Cabinet, in the face of corruption allegations during his tenure as FIFA vice-president.
However, that ranking will no longer be applicable, or comparisons to it.
At a media briefing hosted by the Transparency Institute of Trinidad and Tobago, at its Fernandes compound in Laventille yesterday, president of the local chapter Deryck Murray explained that the new 2012 ranking can only be compared to 2013 and thereafter to the previous years.
He observed that there will always be a temptation to draw comparisons to previous rankings, but it would only be an “artificial comparison”.
He noted the same briefing was being held with journalists all over the world to make them aware of their reporting on CPI.
In a statement on the update, Transparency explained that the CPI has been a powerful tool in raising awareness of the issue of corruption and providing an incentive for governments to improve their position by fighting corruption in their public institutions.
“Essentially, Transparency International is using a simpler approach that is easy to follow and understand and that can better capture changes in perceptions of corruption over time.
“This is possible now due to the increased number and quality of data sources which capture perceptions of corruption across multiple countries,” it said.
“In previous editions of the CPI, the methodology drew on a country/ territory’s rank position in the data sources to capture perceptions of corruption as compared with other countries/territories. The 2012 CPI uses the raw scores given to any country/territory and then converts these raw sources to fit the CPI scale,” the statement said.
Transparency noted that the CPI is limited in scope, capturing perceptions of the extent of corruption in the public sector from the perspective of business people and country experts.
Data for T&T’s past rankings were captured from five sources—the Economist Intelligence Unit Country Risk Assessment, the Global Insight Country Risk Ratings, Political Risk Ser- vices International Country Risk Guide, World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey 2010 and the World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey 2011.
