Georgia ranks 68th in Corruption Perception Index 2010

Tbilisi/Berlin, 26 October 2010 – Georgia ranks 68th out of 178 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2010, a measure of domestic and public sector corruption released today. Georgia’s score is 3.8 on a scale from 10 (very clean) to 0 (highly corrupt). In last year’s CPI, Georgia came in 66th, with a score of 4.1. However, the decline in Georgia’s score compared to 2009 is not substantial.

“Georgia’s score shows that corruption has not been eradicated and continues to be an issue that needs to be addressed,” said Mathias Huter, acting director of TI Georgia.

Areas of concern in Georgia remain the urgent need for judicial reform, protection of property rights, a lack of transparency in public spending (including the reserve funds for the President, the Tbilisi Mayor and the government), grand corruption among top-level officials, opaque media ownership and financing, as well as a general low level of civil society involvement in the planning and execution of public policy.

“On the positive side, we at TI Georgia are hopeful that the electronic procurement system to be introduced in December will address a number of problems and improve transparency of state contracts,” commented Huter. “We also welcome that in a few cases, investigations into corruption have been launched against high-level public officials.”

The CPI shows that Georgia has lower levels of perceived corruption than its neighbours, with the exception of Turkey (56th, with a score of 4.4): Armenia ranks 123rd with a score of 2.6, Azerbaijan ranks 134th (2.4) and Russia is 154th (2.1) in the global ranking.

The countries scoring highest in this year’s ranking are Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore (with a score of 9.3), Finland and Sweden (9.2), followed by Canada (8.9), the Netherlands (8.8), Australia, Switzerland (both 8.7) and Norway (8.6). At the bottom of the ranking is Somalia, with a score of 1.1, slightly trailing below Myanmar and Afghanistan (1.4), followed by Iraq (1.5).

The CPI is compiled and released by Transparency International’s Head Office in Berlin and is based on surveys conducted by international organisations and consultancy firms. Due to changes in the CPI’s methodology over time and the fact that the index is based on a changing set of source surveys, the CPI is not an appropriate tool for comparisons of a country’s performance over time but provides a good snapshot of perceived corruption throughout the world.