World Bank governance rankings see slip in corruption control, increase in political stability

The latest World Bank Governance indicators for 2017 have registered a decrease of 4.1 percentage points over the last four years on control over corruption since the election of the Labour Party in 2013.

The World Bank indicators rank over 200 countries around the world, focusing on the quality of governance in each country, categorized into six pillars. The Indicators for Malta show that since 2013, rankings in four out of the six pillars decreased over the last four years.

The indicators for control of corruption showed that in 2013 Malta stood at 81%, but has consistently decreased over the last four years to 76.9% in 2017. Control of corruption captures the perceptions of the extent to which public power is used for private gain. This includes both petty and grand forms of corruption.

The trend followed with the government effectiveness indicator, which in 2013 stood at 86.3% and then dropped to a low of 77.4% in 2016, before managing to crawl back up to 80% in 2017. Government effectiveness captures the perceptions of the quality of public services, the quality of civil services, and the degree in which is it free from political pressures. 

Rule of law follows in the same pattern: in 2013 the indicator stood at 87.3% and went down  81.3% in 2016 and climbed back up to 85.1% in 2017. Rule of law captures the perception to what extent agents have confidence and abide by the rules of the society.  

Voice and accountability indicators showed that in 2013 this stood at 87.8%, decreasing slightly over the last four years to 87.2% in 2017. Voice and accountability captures the perception of to what extent a country's citizen are able to participate in electing governments and freedom of expression.

However, one of the categories that has improved is political stability and absence of violence which in 2013 stood at 83.9% and in 2017 saw an increase to 93.8%, with regulatory quality staying stable. Regulatory quality captures the perceptions of whether the government has the ability to formulate and implement sound policies and regulations.  

Over the past few years Malta, has been heavily criticized by the European Parliament over lack of good governance, including on the sale of citizenship through the Individual Investor Programme.