Thursday, September 27, 2007

Middle East corruption escalates

by Dylan Bowman from Arabian Business

In its 2007 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), Transparency International ranked the degree of public sector corruption as perceived by business people and country analysts between zero and 10, with 10 being the least corrupt. The UAE (5.7) and Qatar (6.0) were judged the least corrupt countries in the region, being ranked 32nd and 34th respectively. Transparency International put Saudi Arabia as the most corrupt Gulf country in 79th position on a score of 3.4, while it judged Syria the Middle East nation with the highest level of corruption, giving the country as score of just 2.4 and placing it 138th. The least corrupt countries on the list were New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Singapore and Sweden. The countries with the highest levels of corruption were Somalia and Myanmar. Transparency International said there is a strong correlation between corruption and poverty.

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