{UAH} QUICK REVIEW OF LATEST GLOBAL CORRUPTION INDEX

I was just going through the latest Global Corruption Index that has just come out today, and I am immediately checking Uganda's position. This country is ranked at number 142 out of 180 countries, and the trend shows a steady progress of decline (loosing 2 points overall since 2012). Like a few other African countries, while we have legislation and better accountability measures in place, implementation is lacking, and there even seems to be a growing infestation of accepting both corruption and the related impunity as the norm, bribery being the lead corrupt behaviour across public service. This is simply unacceptable. A culture that must be curbed, including by using ICT technology as much as is possible. It has worked in a few Estern European countries like Georgia and Estonia which eradicated a deeply-rooted culture of corruption almost overnight, in the space of just a couple of years, mostly thanks to technology that minimized the human-to-human interface across public administration because that direct contact is the one environment that most breeds bribery and corruption.

Generally Sub-Saharan Africa is the most corrupt global region once again, with little improvement from previous years. The index shows a direct correlation between corruption and disregard for the rule of law. Plus the Covid-19 pandemic has further exposed countries good or bad accountability practices. The least corrupt nations having done everything possible to enhance their health care systems and provide coping mechanism for communities most impacted by the economic fallout of the pandemic. While corrupt nations have seen misuse and disappearance of covid-19 emergency funds, and their economies and citizens largely left to fend for themselves.

With 100 being the least corrupt and zero being the most corrupt, Seychelles is consistently the African country with the best score (66), followed by Botswana (60), Cap Verde (58) and Rwanda (54). These four African nations are ranked better than most Asian, South American and Middle Eastern nations when it comes to fighting corruption and having good accountability systems across the board.

What I would like to advise Transparency international, is to have an index where we look at which countries are perpetuating corruption abroad the most. Because we can see some countries having little corruption, yet they are engaged in actions that foster some of the worst financial crimes in other countries. And that is the case for example of tax havens and/or development related corruption in the developing world.

Meanwhile, at the top of this years global list, the five cleanest/least corrupt countries in the world are the usual: New Zealand, Denmark, Finland Switzerland and Singapore.

At the bottom of the world index are also the usual ones who have systematically been the most corrupt countries in the world for the last 2 decades without fail, and they are Somalia (12) and South Sudan (12).

Check for countries positions here: www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2020

Signed: Hussein Lumumba Amin

Thursday 28th January 2021.

Kampala, Uganda.

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