PNG remains a ‘highly corrupt’ country

By ERIC PIET
PAPUA New Guinea remains one of the “highly corrupt” countries in the world, according to the 2018 Corruption Perception Index (CPI).
In the CPI which rates worldwide examination of perceptions of levels of corruption suffered by individual nations, PNG was ranked 138th out of 180 countries with a score of 28 out of 100.
The CPI scores countries on a scale zero to 100, with 100 being perceived to be “very clean” and zero perceived to be “highly corrupt”.
PNG has made no stride in improving its ranking on the CPI, and remains on the classification category of being among the highly-corrupt countries in the world.
New Zealand, which falls in the Pacific region, has been categorised as the second cleanest country with a score of 87 out of 100, with Denmark being first (88/100).
The other three countries in top five are Finland (85/100), Singapore (85/100) and Switzerland (85/100).
Somalia was ranked the most-corrupt country in the world with a ranking of 10 out of 100, with Syria and South Sudan both following with a score of 13 out of 100.
Transparency International PNG (TIPNG) chairman Lawrence Stephen called on political and business leaders, including the public sector, to highly regard the democracy of the country.
“We at TIPNG sincerely and honestly call on everyone concerned that a real effort is needed by all citizens to protect the democracy of PNG,” Stephen said.
He said PNG could improve “if we massively respect the rule of law, which is greatly lacking”.