Malta improves ranking in Transparency International corruption index but loses point

Malta managed to improve its transparency ranking by two placings back to 43 out of 175 countries, after having lost two places in the 2013 Corruption Perception Index by Transparency International, falling to 45 in 2013.

Accoring to the 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index, Malta scored 55 points out of 100, down from 56 in 2013 and 57 in 2012 - which means it actually lost points despite improving its ranking. The fact that there are two less countries in this year's index than 2013's (177) is probably a reason why Malta's ranking has not suffered.

It ranked higher in the 'clean' half of the index than Italy, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria, who are seen as equally corrupt among EU countries.

Malta ranked on the same scale as South Korea, Latvia, and the Seychelles.

In 2013, Malta introduced a Whistleblower's Act and removed prescription on political corruption. But the Corruption Perceptions Index scores in many EU countries remain unchanged or have improved slightly.

Scores for China (with a score of 36 out of 100), Turkey (45) and Angola (19) were among the biggest fallers with a drop of 4 or 5 points, despite average economic growth of more than 4 per cent over the last four years.

“The 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index shows that economic growth is undermined and efforts to stop corruption fade when leaders and high level officials abuse power to appropriate public funds for personal gain,” said José Ugaz, the chair of Transparency International.

More than two thirds of the 175 countries in the 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index score below 50, on a scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 100 (perceived to be very clean).

Denmark comes out on top in 2014 with a score of 92 while North Korea and Somalia share last place, scoring just eight.

The biggest falls were in Turkey (-5), Angola, China, Malawi and Rwanda (all -4). The biggest improvers were Côte d´Ivoire, Egypt, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (+5), Afghanistan, Jordan, Mali and Swaziland (+4).

The Corruption Perceptions Index is based on expert opinions of public sector corruption. Countries’ scores can be helped by open government where the public can hold leaders to account, while a poor score is a sign of prevalent bribery, lack of punishment for corruption and public institutions that don’t respond to citizens’ needs.

China’s score fell to 36 in 2014 from 40 in 2013, despite the fact the Chinese government launched an anti-corruption campaign targeting corrupt public officials.

While top performer Denmark has strong rule of law, support for civil society and clear rules governing the behaviour of those in public positions, it also set an example this November, announcing plans to create a public register including beneficial ownership information for all companies incorporated in Denmark. This measure, similar to those announced by Ukraine and the UK, will make it harder for the corrupt to hide behind companies registered in another person’s name.

Transparency International has begun an international campaign to Unmask the Corrupt. The first step in this long road is for countries to make companies much more transparent so they cannot easily be used to illicitly launder stolen wealth. The real, hidden owners of companies are sometimes corrupt, and they must not be able to ship stolen cash across the world. That’s why we ask every country to create a register of the real beneficial owner of every company operating on its soil and to make that register public.

The countries of the European Union indeed have higher index scores than countries further east. But corruption scandals are not limited to Ukraine and Turkey. This year has been marked by numerous scandals in the heart of “old Europe”: in France, Spain and Italy they included a former president, a current regional president and members of the royal family, not to mention dozens of politicians and influential business people. EU citizens also protested against corruption this year in Spain, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The Corruption Perceptions Index scores in many of the countries of the European Union remain unchanged or have improved slightly. In part, this is because the economic situation has stabilised, at least at present, and in some cases, governments are starting to tackle endemic corruption.