Monrovia — The International transparency watchdog group, Transparency International in its latest ranking of countries that practice acts of corruption at the highest level has listed four African Countries amongst the top 10 where corruption is practice with Liberia performing better this time. In the ranking crisis prone Somalia is ranked the most corrupt country in the world tied at spot one along with North Korea. Another African currently in crisis Sudan is the third most corrupt country in the world according to the transparency group.

South Sudan is at number five while divided Libya stands at nine with Eritrea completing the top ten most corrupt countries on the globe. “It is time to stop those who get away with acts of corruption. The legal loopholes and lack of political will in government facilitate both domestic and cross-border corruption, and call for our intensified efforts to combat the impunity of the corrupt” said Huguette Labelle, Transparency International

The Corruption Perceptions Index 2013 serves as a reminder that the abuse of power, secret dealings and bribery continue to ravage societies around the world, the transparency group stated. The Index scores 177 countries and territories on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). No country has a perfect score, and two-thirds of countries score below 50. This indicates a serious worldwide corruption problem. The world urgently needs a renewed effort to crack down on money laundering, clean up political finance, pursue the return of stolen assets and build more transparent public institutions, Transparency International says.
The Corruption Perceptions Index ranks countries and territories based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be. A country or territory’s score indicates the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of 0 – 100, where 0 means that a country is perceived as highly corrupt and 100 means it is perceived as very clean. A country’s rank indicates its position relative to the other countries and territories included in the index. This year’s index includes 177 countries and territories. Liberia performed better this time as it is ranked 83 out of 177 countries used in the survey.

According to the group, Corruption and economic turmoil often go hand-in-hand. “In western nations like the United States and many European countries, we often see corruption come to light as the result of whistleblowers or journalistic efforts. But in many other areas of the world, however, corruption plays a major role in fostering staggering poverty and broken economic systems in a much more blatant way”, the group noted.