The annual corruption perceptions index, released by Transparency International (TI), has ranked Kenya number 143 of 180 countries that were included in the index for the year 2017.
The index, which ranks countries on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean), awarded Kenya a score of 28 ─ a slight improvement from 2016 and 2015 when the country was given 26 and 25 points, respectively.
EACC
TI Kenya Executive Director Samuel Kimeu said failure to punish individuals implicated in graft continues to be a major stumbling block.
Incompetence and ineffectiveness of anti-corruption agencies also attributed to the poor ranking, Mr Kimeu said.
Among the East Africa Community countries, Rwanda was the top performer with a score of 55 at position 48.
Tanzania was second with a score of 36 at position 103 followed by Kenya and Uganda which was position 151 with 26 points.
Burundi is the worst performing in the region with a score of 22 points at position 157.
Mr Kimeu said Kenya’s score is still lower than the combined average score for Africa which is 32.
TOP AND BOTTOM
In the new report, there were no changes at the top and bottom with New Zealand and Denmark ranked highest with scores of 89 and 88 respective. Syria, South Sudan and Somalia were the lowest with scores of 14, 12 and 9 respectively similar to 2016 .
Western Europe was ranked the best performing region with an average score of 66.
The worst performing regions are Sub-Saharan Africa (average score 32) and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (average score 34).
Botswana emerged the highest ranked country in Africa with a score of 61 followed by Rwanda with a score of 55.
Here is a selection from the rankings.
- Top 12
- New Zealand 89 points
- Denmark 88
- Finland, Norway, Switzerland, equal at 85
- Singapore, Sweden 84
- Canada, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Britain 82
- Germany 81
- In the middle
- United States, Belgium 75 points
- Japan 73
- France 70
- Spain 57
- Italy 50
- South Africa 43
- China 41
- Turkey 40
- Russia, Mexico 29
- At the bottom
- Venezuela, Iraq 18 points
- Libya , North Korea 17
- Yemen, Sudan 16
- Afghanistan 15
- Syria 14
- South Sudan 12
- Somalia 9
