Over the past year, corruption has become worse, rather than better, in a number of countries, according to the 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index released recently by Transparency International. In Africa, Burundi and Somalia had the worst increases in perceived corruption. With the lowest possible transparency score of 1.0 our of 10, Somalia was ranked as the most corrupt country in the world, followed by Burma on 1.3, Iraq on 1.3, Haiti on 1.4, Afghanistan on 1.5, and Sudan on 1.6. These results demonstrate a clear relationship between corruption and economic and political collapse.
At the other end of the scale, the least corrupt countries in the world were Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden, each with a score of 9.3. Australia was in ninth place with a score of 8.7, the UK was in 16th place with 7.7 and the US was in 18th place with 7.3. There were 180 countries included in the rankings. An interesting observation of Transparency International is that, whilst poorer countries are plagued by corrupt judiciaries and ineffective parliamentary oversight, wealthier countries often have insufficient regulation of the private sector and weak oversight of financial institutions and transactions.
Any country with a score of between 3 and 5 are considered to have corruption as a serious challenge, and countries which scored below 3 are considered to have rampant corruption. In the East African region, Tanzania and Rwanda rated best with scores of 3, followed by Uganda on 2.6, Kenya on 2.1 and Burundi on 1.9. Zimbabwe was a very poor performer with a score of 1.8.