By Paul Tate
AMMAN — The level of corruption in Jordan is perceived to have significantly worsened over the last year, according to a report released by Transparency International on Monday.
In its annual Corruption Perceptions Index, which covers 163 countries, the global graft watchdog ranked Jordan 40, with a score of 5.3, a drop of three places on last year’s ranking when the country scored an index of 5.7.
The index score relates to perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by businesspeople and country analysts and ranges between zero, very corrupt, and 10, clean.
Survey questions for the index focus on the misuse of public power for private benefit, such as bribery of public officials, kickbacks, embezzlement, or questions that probe the strength of anti-corruption policies.
The report will serve as a sharp reminder for the government which has placed tackling corruption among its top priorities, and comes in the wake of a local opinion poll earlier this month which revealed that citizens have little faith in the government’s ability to seriously address this issue.
The poll, conducted by the University of Jordan’s Centre for Strategic Studies (CSS), showed that citizens believe that nepotism, fraud and graft have steadily increased in both the public and private sectors.
Over 60 per cent of those polled believe that corruption is “rampant” within the public sector, while over 50 per cent said it had also become more widespread in the private sector.
Three-quarters of respondents said they were unaware of any cases of alleged corruption being investigated by the authorities, despite the fact that the present government has initiated legal proceedings against four major institutions, including former and present officials of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs over graft allegations.
CSS pollster Mohammad Masri said the Transparency International survey confirmed the university’s findings.
“The government lacks an overall strategy to combat corruption… and has not found a means to change attitudes towards it among the people or in the public sector itself,” he told The Jordan Times yesterday.
“Civil servants don’t believe that the government is serious about this issue, which means that citizens and civil servants aren’t discouraged from turning a blind eye to corruption.”
Masri said that the prevalence of wasta (favouritism based on connections) and the fact that it remains a commonly accepted practice within Jordanian society, had resulted in other forms of corruption becoming a socially acceptable norm.
“In one our recent surveys, we found that people see wasta as an acceptable practice… but wasta is corruption,” said Masri.
In September, the Senate approved the anti-corruption commission draft law after endorsing an amendment introduced by the Lower House placing it under the auspices of the Prime Ministry.
The law, however, immediately came under fire from human rights activists who said the commission should be independent of the government if it is to seriously pursue graft allegations.
The Transparency International (TI) report found that Haiti, Myanmar and Iraq are perceived as the most corrupt countries in the world, while Finland is regarded as the cleanest.
TI said that corruption was shockingly rampant worldwide with almost three-quarters of the countries in the report scoring below five, including all low-income countries and all but two African states.
Countries with a significant worsening in perceived levels of corruption also include Brazil, Israel, Tunisia and the United States.
Wealthy democracies topped the list, confirming the link between anti-sleaze efforts and prosperity.
“Despite a decade of progress in establishing anti-corruption laws and regulations, today’s results indicate that much remains to be done before we see meaningful improvements in the lives of the world’s poorest citizens,” the chairwoman of the Berlin-based nongovernmental organisation, Huguette Labelle, said in a statement.
Tuesday, November 7, 2006
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