Ukraine inches up on international corruption index

There is no reason for wild euphoria,
however.

For one, Ukraine still ranks 16th in
the East Europe and Central Asia region, which covers post-Soviet and
Balkan states (and Turkey), not yet in the European Union.

Ahead of Belarus, Azerbaijan and
Russia, Ukraine was only beaten by Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan for the title of most corrupt country of
one of the world’s most corrupt regions.

Indeed, with 95 percent of countries
scoring below 50 on a scale from 100, meaning totally clean, to 0,
suggesting total corruption (Georgia was the only exception with a
score of 52), the region fell below the level seen in sub-Saharan
Africa, which had 90 percent of states below 50.

The East Europe and Central Asia region
performed a bit better on average scores, though, with 35.2 compared
to 33.3 for Sub-Saharan Africa, which was heavily represented in the
bottom decile of the ranking and counted the world’s most corrupt
state, Somalia.

With a score of 26, Ukraine fell behind
such countries like Pakistan and Nigeria, neither of which have
particularly shining track records. It did rank ahead of civil
war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo (21), but was well below Mali
(34), whose northern half is going through an Al-Quada inssurection,
and on par with Syria (26). The mirror image would be Japan or the
United Kingdom, both of which scored 74.

Nonetheless, the presents an
improvement on
last year, but remains below the
country’s 2010 rank of 134th. With tweaks to
the methodology, the individual scores should be taken with a grain
of salt when comparing results from different years.

Moreover, movements in rank can be the
result of global trends rather than country-level policy, or simply
changes in the number of countries surveyed – 2012 had 176, 2011
had 183, while 2010 had just 174.

Based on qualitative assessments and
questionnaires by local experts and institutions, the annual index
reflects the perception of corruption in the administration and
public sectors. Private sector and other forms of corruption are, to
some extent, covered by the international watchdog’s other indexes,
including the Global
Corruption Barometer and the Bribe
Payer’s Index.

Kyiv Post editor Jakub Parusinski
can be reached at parusinski@kyivpost.com