Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P].
The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), released Thursday by civil society organisation Transparency International, revealed that corruption is undermining health systems and contributing to democratic backsliding in the midst of the HIV/AIDS-19 pandemic.
This index revealed that countries with good scores invest more in health, are better able to provide universal health coverage and are less likely to violate democratic norms and institutions or the rule of law.
"COVID-19 is not just a health and economic crisis: it is a crisis of corruption. And we are not overcoming it.
As far as memory serves, no year has tested governments as much as the past one, and those with the highest levels of corruption have shown the least capacity to meet the challenge. But even the countries at the top of the index have an urgent obligation to acknowledge their role in perpetuating corruption at home and abroad".
Delia Ferreira Rubio, Chair of Transparency International.
The 2020 edition of the Corruption Perceptions Index ranks 180 countries and territories according to the perceived level of corruption in their public sector, based on thirteen assessments and surveys of experts and business people.
In the list, which uses a scale from zero 'high corruption' to 100 'no corruption', the top-ranked countries were Denmark and New Zealand, with 88 points each.
At the other end of the scale, however, were Syria with 14 points and Somalia and South Sudan with 12 points each.
The index showed significant changes from previous years, as since 2012, the first year included in the comparisons under the current index methodology, 26 countries have significantly improved their scores, including Ecuador ?39?, Greece ?50?, Guyana ?41?, Burma ?28? and South Korea ?61?
On the other hand, those whose anti-corruption performance dropped significantly were Bosnia-Herzegovina ?35?, Guatemala ?25?, Lebanon ?25?, Malawi ?30?, Malta ?53? and Poland ?56?
The paper notes that nearly half of the countries have been stuck in the same position in the index for nearly a decade, suggesting that their governments' efforts to get at the root causes of corruption have stalled. While more than two-thirds score below 50.
COVID-19 Pandemic is Added
Corruption is a very serious threat to the lives and livelihoods of citizens, especially when combined with a health emergency, and there is a correlation between the absence of corruption in a country's public sector and higher health spending.
For example, Uruguay, which has the highest score in Latin America - 71 - invests heavily in health and has a good epidemiological monitoring system that has been a great help in dealing with COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, such as yellow fever and Zika, the report says.
At the other end of the scale, however, Bangladesh scores only 26 points and its investment in health is minimal, while corruption thrives during the pandemic, with cases ranging from bribery in clinics to embezzlement of aid funds.
Corruption is also pervasive in health procurement, as countries with the highest levels of corruption also tend to be the most prone to abuses of the rule of law and democratic institutions during the COVID-19 crisis.
One of the countries with such problems is the Philippines ?34? where the government's response to the pandemic has been characterised by attacks on human rights and press freedom.
U.S. USA
THE U.S. CONTINUES ITS DOWNWARD TREND WITH 67 POINTS, ITS WORST SCORE SINCE 2012. The U.S. continues its downward trend with 67 points, its worst score since 2012. For according to the global organization that has been fighting corruption for more than 25 years, aside from alleged conflicts of interest and abuses of authority at the highest levels, alarm bells have been ringing in 2020 over weak oversight of the trillion-dollar anti-COVID-19 effort in a country with a long history of democratic norms that promote government accountability.
Studies conducted by Transparency International's Global Health programme in the past found that corruption deprives the global health sector of $500 billion a year.
