South Sudan has been ranked as the most corrupt amongst the 180 countries in the 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) by Transparency International (TI), the nongovernmental organization based in Germany, which defines corruption as the misuse of public power for private benefit.
The country was at the bottom of the index in 2020 as well.
The TI index, which ranked 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople, uses a scale of 0-100 – where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is clean.
South Sudan remains at the bottom of the index with a score of 11, followed by Syria (13) and Somalia (13).
According to TI, as anti-corruption efforts stagnate worldwide, human rights and democracy are also under assault.
“This is no coincidence. Our latest analysis shows that protecting human rights is crucial in the fight against corruption: countries with well-protected civil liberties generally score higher on the CPI, while countries who violate civil liberties tend to score lower,” the TI statement read. “The global COVID-19 pandemic has also been used in many countries as an excuse to curtail basic freedoms and sidestep important checks and balances.”
The anti-corruption body said, this year, the global average remains unchanged for the tenth year in a row, at just 43 out of a possible 100 points.
Daniel Eriksson, the Chief Executive Officer, Transparency International Secretariat, said, “In authoritarian contexts where control rests with a few, social movements are the last remaining check on power. It is the collective power held by ordinary people from all walks of life that will ultimately deliver accountability.”
According to TI, despite multiple commitments, 131 countries have made no significant progress against corruption in the last decade. Two-thirds of countries score below 50, indicating that they have serious corruption problems, while 27 countries are at their lowest score ever.
While South Sudan scored the lowest among the Sub-Saharan countries, Seychelles scored the highest with 70 points.
The report states that with an average score of 33 out of 100, Sub-Saharan Africa shows no significant improvement from previous years. The gains made by top scorers are overshadowed by the region’s poor performance overall – 44 out of 49 countries still score below 50.