We are not as corrupt as perceived by latest world report!

The latest world corruption index, which shows that the country has dropped eight places, will not affect investments in the country and do not really paint a true picture of the levels of, analysts said this week. Namibia has dropped from 47 last year to 55 on the 2006 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) launched this week by Transparency International (TI). Director of the Anti Corruption Commission Paulus Noa told the Economist that he was not worried by the drop on the CPI index as this was caused by more countries being polled this year than last year. Last year, 158 countries were polled to 163 this year. Noa said the CPI was a “mere perception” and not based on solid facts. Noa said Namibia, with a score of 4.1, was still doing well and has a good standing in Africa at number five.

Botswana is ranked as Africa's least corrupt country, followed by Mauritius. South Africa and Tunisia share third place with 4.6 points. Noa said what is happening in the country at the moment is that old corruption cases are being reported by the public, a trend which he said has increased in the last two years. However, he said the mere perception that Namibia was a corrupt country had the potential of scaring investors.
Daniel Motinga, director of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) echoed Noa’s sentiments saying the CPI was a mere perception based on “interviews with a few individuals”. Motinga said extensive media coverage of cases like AVID, in which the Social Security Commission lost N$30 million through dubious investments and a similar case at the Offshore Development Company (ODC), has created the impression that corruption is on the increase in the country.

Motinga said corruption levels in the country have remained unchanged since independence in 1990. The only worry, according to Motinga, was that the country was ranked below Botswana and South Africa, the two countries often compared to in terms of Namibia's economic development and policies. Motinga added that the drop on the CPI was unlikely to affect the flow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). He gave an example of Angola, which at 142 is ranked far below Namibia but is still attracting FDIs. Transparency International said the report points to a strong correlation between corruption and poverty, with a concentration of impoverished states at the bottom of the ranking. “Corruption traps millions in poverty,” said Transparency International Chair Huguette Labelle. “Despite a decade of progress in establishing anti-corruption laws and regulations, today’s results indicate that much remains to be done before we see meaningful improvements in the lives of the world’s poorest citizens.”

It scored countries on a scale from zero to ten, with zero indicating high levels of perceived corruption and ten indicating low levels of perceived corruption. The report said almost three-quarters of the countries in the CPI scored below five indicating that most countries in the world face serious perceived levels of domestic corruption. 71 countries - nearly half - score below three, indicating that corruption is perceived as rampant. Haiti has the lowest score at 1.8; Guinea, Iraq and Myanmar share the penultimate slot, each with a score of 1.9. Finland, Iceland and New Zealand share the top score of 9.6.