PNG among 30 most corrupt: Surveys
By MADELEINE AREK
A NUMBER of international surveys conducted this year have ranked Papua New Guinea among the 30 most corrupt countries in the world with no real indication for improving its governance.
In the Pacific, PNG topped the corruption perception index (CPI) ladder as the most corrupt in the region with a score of two compared to Samoa (4.4), Kiribati (3.1), Solomon Islands (2.9) and Tonga (2.4).
The CPI ranking starts with a zero score for the worst to 10 (very good).
The CPI is an international ranking of countries by perceived levels of corruption, drawing information and statistics from a basket of in-country surveys conducted every year.
Of the 180 countries ranked this year by several groups including the Asian Development Bank, World Bank and Global Insight, PNG scored 151, a 10-point jump from 161 last year.
However, Transparency International (PNG) chairman Peter Aitsi said PNG did not better the score in the region from last year.
Mr Aitsi attributed the poor rating to lack of real action by successive governments, including this Government, to deal with the spread of corruption and major issues including the Moti affair, recent Taiwan cash for diplomacy scandal and the Singapore US dollar account saga.
He said while the Government had done its part to put in place mechanisms to fight corruption, those tasked with monitoring levels of performance and punish offenders had failed to perform.
“Those who do not perform must go.
“Laws must be honoured and implemented,” Mr Aitsi said.
He said the poor ranking was a reminder that if no serious action was taken to combat corruption, “our communities would face even harder times in the years ahead”.
“We can get angry about the CPI and blame the world for interferring in PNG affairs; or we can take real action and do something about it,” he said.
Mr Aitsi said the corruption index was not a judgment by TIPNG or the Transparency International movement.
“It was a gathering together of information by a number of surveys that provided data on PNG.”
For PNG, the survey results were assessed by the Asian Development Bank country performance assessment (2007), Bertelsmann transformation index (BTI) 2007, country policy and institutional assessment by the World Bank (2007), Economist intelligence unit (EIU) 2008, Merchant International Group (MIG) 2007 and Global Insight 2008.
“It is important to understand that this was a perception index.
“It showed that Papua New Guinea was seen to be comparatively worse off than most of the rest of the world,” Mr Aitsi said.
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