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To: maceng2 who wrote (189694)	8/28/2002 3:53:26 AM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

Worldwide corruption seen as on the increase By Hugh Williamson in Berlin Published: August 27 2002 21:57 \| Last Updated: August 27 2002 21:57 Corruption is worsening in many industrialised and developing countries, according to a closely-watched league table published on Wednesday. This year's corruption perceptions index, compiled by the Berlin-based watchdog Transparency International, shows that about 70 of the 102 countries listed scored fewer than five out of the possible 10 points allocated to "highly clean" countries. Last year 55 of the 91 countries listed scored fewer than five points. Peter Eigen, Transparency International chairman, said: "The picture of widespread corruption is continuing, with public officials misusing their power to corrupt ends." Mr Eigen said several countries, including Slovenia and Russia, had improved their standing this year. "Slovenia is the leading European Union membership candidate when it comes to tackling corruption," he said, now outranking EU members Italy and Greece. Russia's fight against corruption was welcomed, although Mr Eigen was cautious about reading too much into it until anti-money laundering and other laws became fully established. Among developing countries, Botswana and Namibia had done well, he said. Argentina is among countries where corruption was perceived to have worsened last year. Paraguay, included in the list for the first time this year, also has a "very serious problem," Mr Eigen said. As in previous years, Scandinavian countries led the table as the least corrupt, largely due to the liberal freedom on information laws in these countries, Mr Eigen said. The annual index of perceived corruption levels is based on polls of business people, academics and analysts. The results in different years were not strictly comparable over time, Mr Eigen stressed. The US and UK have scores little changed from last year, while Germany has not improved following a series of major political party funding scandals since the late 1990s. The anti-corruption watchdog, which has local branches in many industrialised and developing countries, will today also make a direct link between corruption, poverty and the environment. Mr Eigen, who will this week attend the UN Sustainable Development summit, said: "Corruption remains one of the main causes of poverty in developing countries," with rich elites in some developing countries able to use corruption structures to maintain gross inequalities between rich and poor. The environment suffered through corruption via the preference for large-scale development projects, Mr Eigen said. "With large projects, officials can get much bigger kickbacks." Water and forestry projects were particularly susceptible to this form of corruption, he added. news.ft.com (Here is link. 2002 index due today Aug 28...pb) transparency.org Some scores for 2001. (score of 10 equals "clean" country). Canada 8.9 UK 8.3 USA 7.6 Russia 2.3