Transparency International Concerned about Increasing Corruption in G7 Countries

The four G7 countries have fallen in 2019 Corruption Perceptions Index. Germany and Russia neither improved nor worsened their indices. “Governments must urgently address the corrupting role of big money in political party financing and the undue influence it exerts on (our) political systems,” Delia Ferreira Rubio said, a Chair of Transparency International (TI), an international organization which released the 2019 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranking 180 countries on Thursday, January 23. Based on expert assessments, the organization assigns a corruption susceptibility index to each country – from 0 (maximum corruption) to 100 (no corruption). The leaders are Denmark and New Zealand with 87 score. Finland has 86. The worst indicators are Somalia (9), South Sudan (12 s) and Syria (13). Russia with 28 points is at the bottom of the rating, only Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan from the post-Soviet countries are below it. Russia’s indicators have not changed since last year. Somewhat better are indicators in Azerbaijan and Ukraine (30 points each). However, Azerbaijan worsened its score by one point compared to 2018, whereas Ukraine, on the contrary, improved its score by five points. Estonia has the lowest corruption in post-Soviet countries; it is in the 19th place (74 points). The study notes with concern that four G7 countries decreased their scores compared to last year: Canada lost four points, France and the UK three, and the United States two. Germany’s position (10th place with 80 points) remained unchanged.