Corruption index leaves Uganda in the dark

Like a few other African countries, while we have legislation and better accountability measures in place, implementation is lacking. Besides,  there seems to be a growing infestation of accepting both corruption and associated impunity as the norm. Bribery is the lead corrupt behaviour across public service. This is unacceptable.  It is a culture that must be curbed.

The fight should include using ICT technology as much as possible. This has worked in some Eastern European countries such as  Georgia and Estonia, which eradicated a deeply-rooted corruption within a short time.  

Thanks to technology that minimised the human-to-human interface across public administration because that direct contact is the one environment that most breeds bribery and corruption.

Generally, sub-Saharan Africa is the most corrupt global region once again, with little improvement from previous years. The index shows a direct correlation between corruption and disregard for the rule of law.
 
The Covid-19 pandemic has further exposed countries good or bad accountability practices. The least corrupt nations having done everything possible to enhance their health care systems and provide coping mechanism for communities most impacted by the economic fallout of the pandemic.

While corrupt nations have seen misuse and disappearance of Covid-19 emergency funds, and their economies and citizens largely left to fend for themselves.

With 100 being the least corrupt and zero being the most corrupt, Seychelles is consistently the African country with the best score (66), followed by Botswana (60), Cap Verde (58) and Rwanda (54).

These four African nations are ranked better than most Asian, South American and Middle Eastern nations when it comes to fighting corruption and having good accountability systems across the board.

What I would like to advise Transparency international, is to have an index where we look at which countries are perpetuating corruption abroad the most.

Because we can see some countries having little corruption, yet they are engaged in actions that foster some of the worst financial crimes in other countries. And that is the case, for example, of tax havens and/or development related corruption in the developing world.

Meanwhile, at the top of this years global list, the five cleanest/least corrupt countries in the world are the usual: New Zealand, Denmark, Finland Switzerland and Singapore.

At the bottom of the world index are also the usual ones who have systematically been the most corrupt countries in the world for the last two  decades without fail, and they are Somalia (12) and South Sudan (12).

Hussein Lumumba Amin,
Kampala, Uganda