By EDDIE OSIFELO
SOLOMON Islands will know its ranking in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) today.
Transparency Solomon Islands (TSI) has organised a one and half hour panel discussion today starting 1.30pm at Solomon Islands Broadcasting leaf hut to discuss the country’s approach on corruption and reflect on her CPI ranking.
Leadership Code Commission, Solomon Islands Independent Commission Against Corruption (SIICAC), Media Association of Solomon Islands (MASI), Council of Women and social media representatives are participating in the panel.
CPI uses a scale of 0 to 100 to rank nations, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.
In 2017, Solomon Islands ranked 39.
It moved up to 44 in 2018 after the government passed the Anti-Corruption Act, the Whistle-blowers Protection Act, and government working with civil society more openly welcoming people’s participation.
However, in 2019, it dropped to 44.
But last year, Solomon Islands made a huge jump to 77 out of 180 countries.
The huge jump was due to Solomon Islands witnessed the national general election and the period leading up to the formation of the new Executive Government.
Substantial evidence has identified that the new regime was very much open to political party financing and politicians were open to undue influence from vested interests and such a government was obviously less able to combat corruption on its own and they have failed to partner with the people in the fight against corruption.
According to TSI, there are two most widely used indicators of Corruption today.
These are the Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index [CPI] and Control of Corruption Indicator one of the six Governance Indicators [WGIs] produced by World Bank Researchers.
The Corruption Perception Index [ CPI] is the leading global indicator of public sector corruption since its inception in 1995.
In 2012, Transparency International revised the methodology used to construct the index to allow for comparison of scores from one year to the next.
The CPI analyses perceptions of corruption in the public sector and scores 180 countries and territories, drawing on 13 surveys of businesspeople and expert assessments.
Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranks countries “by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.”
The CPI defines corruption as “the misuse of public power for private benefit”.
The theme for this year’s launch of the 2020 CPI is COVID-19 AND CORRUPTION.
