Singapore is the 6th least corrupt country in the world
New Zealand topped the list with 89 points, five points higher than Singapore.
Transparency International’s (TI) Corruptions Perceptions Index ranked Singapore as the sixth least corrupt country in the world in 2017.
The index scores and ranks countries based on the perception of experts and business executives on how corrupt the public sector is. The scores range from 0, which is perceived as highly corrupt, to 100, which means that a country is perceived very clean.
Whilst Singapore moved up one notch in 2017 index, its score remained at 84. New Zealand topped the list even as its score dipped 1 point to 89.
Moreover, African countries such as Syria (14), South Sudan (12), and Somalia (9) scored the lowest taking the tail end spots 178, 179, and 180 respectively. Africa is also the worst performing region when it comes to curbing corruption.
“The lowest-scoring countries on the index are often those where there is conflict or war. Reducing corruption in these contexts is particularly challenging. The fragile nature of governments in these situations presents a real challenge to making meaningful changes,” TI explained.
Meanwhile, Asia Pacific is also failing to curb corruption which resulted to an average score of merely 44.
“This year’s results show slow and imperfect progress across the Asia Pacific region. Many countries face substantially different issues in their efforts to curb corruption. While corruption continues to be a rampant problem across the region, improvements will only be made if there is strong political will for change and if a comprehensive strategy is adopted, not one based on isolated actions,” said TI.
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