Bangladesh ranks 13th most corrupt country in the world

Bangladesh ranked 13th most corrupt country among 180 in the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2021 released on Tuesday. Last year Bangladesh’s ranking was 14th.

Also, Bangladesh ranked the 2nd most corrupt nation after Afghanistan in South Asia. Bhutan is the least corrupt country in South Asia.

Denmark, Finland and New Zealand were the top three least corrupt countries while Venezuela, Somalia, Syria and South Sudan were the top four most corrupt nations in the world.

Transparency International conducts the survey on 180 countries. The countries are scored between 0 – 100. The country which gets a minimum score means the country is the most corrupt. 

However, most of the countries were below the global average score of 43. Among those with low scores are some of the world’s most populous countries China (45), India (40), Indonesia (38), Pakistan (28) and Bangladesh (26).

Transparency International said a concerning trend in some of these countries is a weakening of anti-corruption institutions.

Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) disclosed this through a virtual press briefing on Tuesday.

TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman said, “It is disappointing that Bangladesh is in the same place in CPI index. We had the same score last year.”

Dr Iftekharuzzaman also pointed out the potential reasons for corruption in Bangladesh.

According to the report, abuse of power, lack of justice, lack of accountability, among others, were the key reasons for corruption. In this year, there was no change in the corruption indicators.

Bangladesh was the top most corrupt country in the global ranking from 2001 to 2005.