Ukraine
tied for 144th place in the ranking with Cameroon, the Central African
Republic, Iran, Nigeria, and Papua New Guinea. 
That ranking placed it ahead of several Central Asian post-Soviet
states, including Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Ukraine’s
position remains unchanged from 2012, though Ukraine’s score fell, indicating a
marginally higher level of corruption over the previous year. 

Ukraine is
halfway through its own anti-corruption program, the State Program on
Prevention and Combating Corruption for 2011-2015, but has yet to reap results
from that program. 

The
question of the Ukrainian leadership’s actual commitment to reducing corruption
has loomed large since Ukraine failed to sign the anti-corruption initiative of
the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in November of this year.

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The Corruption
Perceptions Index is not the only ranking Ukraine faired poorly in.  Ukraine also slumped in the World Economic
Forum’s global competitiveness index released in September, coming in at 84th
out of 143 countries, and 112th in the 2014 Ease of Doing Business Report.

Transparency
International’s report noted that CIS countries posed corruption challenges, as
all CIS states were subject to endemic corruption.

Russia
improved in the same ranking, moving up six positions to 127th. Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan remained the worst in the CIS ranking at 150th,
154th, and 168th, respectively.

On the
flipside, Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, and Sweden had the lowest bribery
rankings.  However, the study admits none
of the surveyed nations received a perfect score. Worldwide, the 69 percent of ranked
countries are facing serious corruption problems.

Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be
reached at
goncharova@kyivpost.com.

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