The headquarters of the transparency International-Cameroon in Yaounde was the venue of the official lunching of the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2010. The event saw the participation of members of the diplomatic corps, journalists as well as guests.
The 2010 CPI measures the degree to which public sector corruption is perceived to exist in 178 countries around the world. The 2010 CPI shows that nearly three quarters of the 178 countries in the index score below five on a scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 10 (perceived to have low levels of corruption), indicating a serious corruption problem. The 2010 results are drawn from 13 surveys and assessments published between January 2009 and September 2010. In the CPI, Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore tie for the first place with scores of 9.3. Unstable governments often with a legacy of conflict continue to dominate the bottom rungs of the CPI. Afghanistan and Myanmar share the second to the last place with a score of 1.4 with Somalia coming in last with a score of 1.1. Botswana, the first sub-Saharan African country comes at the 33rd position with a score of 5.8, followed by the Mauritius Islands at the 39th position with a score of 5.4 and Cape Verde at the 45th position with a score of 5.1. The rest of the 30 African countries considered in this ranking are below average. Cameroon and Cote d’Ivoire share the last position with a score of 2.2.
The 2010 CPI covers two countries fewer than last year’s edition. The slight change resulted from individual sources adjusting the range of countries they asses. This adjustment in coverage made it possible to include Kosovo for the first time but led to the exclusion of St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Suriname for which only two sources of information where available this year. Where source surveys for individual countries remain the same, and where there is corroboration by more than half of those sources real changes in perceptions can be ascertained. Using this criteria it is possible to establish an improvement in scores from 2009 to 2010 for Bhutan, Chile, Ecuador, FYR Macedonia, Gambia, Haiti, Jamaica, Kuwait and Qatar. Similarly, a decline in scores from 2009 to 2010 can be identified for the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Madagascar, Niger and the United States.
