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The Peninsula
Doha: Qatar has retained the second spot in the Arab world on the latest 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) by Transparency International.
Qatar scored 58 out of a possible 100, its lowest score in the last ten years, after reaching its highest score of 71 in 2015. Qatar was also recently ranked the 'Safest Country' in the world according to Numbeo Crime Index, while Doha is the world's second safest city.
Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates leads the Arabs in the Index with a CPI score of 67. War-ravaged countries like Libya (17), Yemen (16) and Syria (13) were the most corrupt Arab countries per the CPI.
The report disclosed that a country's score is the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of 0-100, where 0 means highly corrupt and 100 means very clean, the report said.
The country's rank is its position relative to the other countries in the Index. However, ranks can change if the number of countries included in the index changes. Hence, rank is not as important as the score indicating the country's corruption level.
“Corruption, conflict and security are profoundly intertwined – and nowhere is this more evident than the Middle East and North Africa.“As the least peaceful region in the world according to the Global Peace Index, it exemplifies the myriad ways in which corruption and violence fuel each other,” the report said.
According to Transparency International, the region continues to struggle with authoritarianism, citing the failure of leadership changes due to the Arab Spring to dismantle the power structures that allow those at the top to retain control and hinder political integrity. The report added that these failures had caused pervasive civil unrest – and violent conflict – as people fought for their rights and voices to be heard. In turn, the instability and consolidation of power fuel political corruption, feeding the vicious cycle of authoritarianism, corruption and conflict across the Arab world.
In the Gulf region, Kuwait was the least ranked at (42), while Saudi Arabia scored 51, and Bahrain and Oman recorded 44 each.
The report stated that in many countries across the Arab region, lack of transparency in state security budgets allows funds to be spent without public input and redirected by unscrupulous actors.
In an area with so much conflict, such budgets are significant – offering substantial gains for corrupt actors. Denmark topped the Index this year, with 90 points, followed by Finland and New Zealand with 87 points each. Conflict-hit countries Somalia and South Sudan join Syria at the bottom of the Index with 12, 13, and 13 points, respectively.