Corruption perceived to be on the rise

Corruption in Malta is perceived to be on the rise, according to a global report by Transparency International.

The 2009 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) ranks Malta in the 45th position in the 180-country index, down nine places from last year and another three from the year before.

When compared to western European countries, however, the island ranked in the same position as last year - 20th out of 30 countries.

Among the EU member states, the 2009 survey shows that Malta fares better than Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia, Italy, Bulgaria, Greece and Romania.

For Transparency International, Malta's recent slide in the CPI is quite significant.

"Noteworthy examples of deteriorations from scores in the 2008 CPI to 2009 CPI on which more than half of the sources agreed include: Bahrain, Greece, Iran, Malaysia, Malta and Slovakia. In these cases, we can conclude that changes in perceptions of analysts and businesspeople regarding levels of corruption occurred during the last two years."

The annual CPI first released by Transparency International in 1995, has been widely credited for putting the issue of corruption on the international policy agenda and ranks more than 180 countries in terms of perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.

The new ranking comes as former Chief Justice Noel Arrigo is being tried on corruption charges similar to those that have already seen a colleague, former judge Patrick Vella, being jailed for two years.

It also follows one of the biggest cases of VAT fraud which this year led to 32 businessmen, middlemen and employees being arraigned on bribery and corruption charges.

In the case of Malta, four surveys were used for this year's ranking although no information about their authors was given. In the past, reports issued by the Economist Intelligence Unit and the World Economic Forum were used to gauge Malta's perceived corruption levels.

On a global level, this year's index shows that the majority of the 180 countries scored below five on a scale of 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 10 (perceived to have low levels of corruption). Malta's was given a 5.2, down from last year's 5.8.

Fragile, unstable states, scarred by war and ongoing conflict linger at the bottom of the index. These are: Somalia, with a score of 1.1; Afghanistan at 1.3; Myanmar at 1.4 and Sudan tied with Iraq at 1.5.

On the other hand, New Zealand at 9.4, Denmark at 9.3, Singapore and Sweden tied at 9.2 and Switzerland at 9.0 are perceived as the least corrupt.

According to the Index's authors, these scores reflect political stability, long-established conflict of interest regulations and solid, functioning public institutions.