Staff Reporter :
Bangladesh stands in the 15th position in global corruption index prepared by Transparency International (TI).
The most corrupt country of 2016 is Somalia, while the least corrupt countries are Denmark and New Zealand, according to the international corruption watchdog.
Bangladesh was in 13th position last year.
Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) published this report at a press conference at the MIDAS Centre in Dhaka on Wednesday. “This year (2016), the country ranked as 15th most corrupt country in the world, a marginal improvement from the 13th most corrupt country last year. Bangladesh moved up and improving marginally in the world corruption perception index,” said the TI report,
TIB chairperson Sultana Kamal, its trustee board members M Hafizuddin Khan and Ali Imam Majumder, executive director Dr Iftekharuzzaman, deputy director Sumaiya Khair, among others, were present, at the publishing ceremony of the report.
The Berlin-based group said in its statement that “deep-rooted” reforms were needed worldwide to tackle the inequality and systemic corruption that have proved a “fertile ground” for populists.
For its 2016 index, the watchdog ranked 176 countries on a scale of 0-100, where zero means very corrupt and 100 signifies very clean, Bangladesh got 26 out of 100, which was 25 in the previous index.
The data is based on surveys from the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the Economist Intelligence unit and other bodies.
New Zealand and Denmark shared the number one spot with a score of 90 points, with Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Norway rounding out the top five of squeaky clean nations.
Strife-torn Somalia was the worst offender in the list for a 10th year running, followed by South Sudan, North Korea and Syria.
Qatar suffered the biggest fall, with a score 10 points lower than last year’s, which TI put down to the corruption claims dogging the country’s 2022 FIFA World Cup bid.
