Corruption unchecked

The Corruptor-in-chief?

Friday, 02 December 2011
Mary Kozlovski and Chhay Channyda
The Phnom Penh Post

The release of the annual Corruption Perception Index from Transparency International yesterday left the Kingdom in a familiar position – low and lacking upward momentum.

The report, which ranks 183 countries across a broad range of categories including bribery, kickbacks and the effectiveness of anti-corruption efforts in the public sector, saw Cambodia finish with a score of 2.1 out of 10, the same score attained in last year’s CPI.

Its ranking relative to the other countries on the list, meanwhile, slid 10 places – from 154 to 164 – though that was influenced to a large degree by the addition of five new countries .

Climbing up the list – the Kingdom is still looking up at Zimbabwe and neighbouring Laos among others – will require the fledgling Anticorruption Unit to take the lead role in battling public sector corruption, a representative from Transparency International said yesterday.

Cambodia fell to 164th from 154th last year: Transparency International

North Korea ‘Worst’ In Corruption

2011-12-01
RFA

“In Cambodia, like China, there is a lot of construction going on, so the government officials try to grab land from the peasants without proper compensation."

A report on global graft calls for transparency and accountability.

Transparency International ranked North Korea 182nd out of 183 countries in corruption.

North Korea is the world’s most corrupt nation, according to a new report which ranked the pariah state for the first time.

The country tied with Somalia for dead last among 183 nations and territories, the Berlin-based corruption watchdog Transparency International said in its annual Corruption Perceptions Index, released Thursday.

“Basically, North Korea is still a very closed economy. There is not so much foreign investment inside the country except from South Korea and China,” said Liao Ran, Transparency International’s senior program coordinator for East Asia.

Cambodia fails miserably behind Laos on Transparency International's corruption index for 2011

Kingdom ranks high for graft [-Rotten to the core]

Friday, 10 December 2010
Adam Miller and Vong Sokheng
The Phnom Penh Post

Some 84 percent of Cambodians say they have paid a bribe in the last 12 months, according to a global corruption survey released yesterday by German NGO Transparency International on International Anti-Corruption Day.

The report, titled 2010 Global Corruption Barometer, was based on polling of 91,000 people in 86 countries and focused on small-scale corruption.

Cambodia ranked among the leading nations where residents most frequently paid some form of bribe, based on surveys of 1,000 Cambodians conducted by Indochina Research in July.

The findings coincide with new efforts by the government’s Anti-Corruption Unit, established earlier this year to address chronic corruption in the Kingdom, and a growing perception among residents that such efforts are effective.

Seventy-two percent of respondents ranked the government’s efforts to battle corruption as effective or extremely effective.

‘The survey findings are surprising,” Ran Liao, Transparency International’s senior programme coordinator for East and South Asia, said in a phone interview from Germany yesterday.

“I’m not sure why the respondent rate is so high as to why the government is so effective against corruption … in Cambodia. Seventy-two percent of respondents see the government as very effective, which is really above the average and quite high.”

The ACU convened a workshop yesterday to announce the implementation of a policy first introduced in July to require the declaration of all assets by more than 100,000 government officials beginning January1.

“We are starting to fight corruption from the lowest to the highest levels, from small groups to big groups,” said Om Yentieng, head of the ACU and close adviser to Prime Minister Hun Sen.

He added that the arrest last week of Pursat provincial prosecutor Top Chan Sereyvuth and two of his bodyguards on charges of corruption, extortion and false imprisonment – the first official arrest by the national anti-corruption body – affirmed the unit’s commitment to battling graft.

Om Yentieng told the workshop that the ACU was also investigating additional corruption cases in Battambang but declined to provide details to delegates.

Cambodia ranks 154 among 178 countries per Transparency International 2010 Corruption Index: Corrupt, Corrupt, Corrupt!

Source: http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2010/results

Cambodia ranks No. 162 in corruption

Friday, September 28, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Regarding the country corruption ranking, Transparency International (TI) publicly issued its corruption ranking list for all 180 countries in the world. According to the Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper, Cambodia was ranked by TI as a country with corruption also: Cambodia ranks 162 on TI list, after Indonesia which ranks 143, but ahead of Laos which ranks 168. In Southeast Asia, with the exception of Singapore which has the lowest corruption ranking, Malaysia ranks 43, Thailand 84, Vietnam 123 on par with East Timor, and The Philippines 131. The countries which have the least corruption are Denmark, Finland, and New Zealand which all obtain a score of 9.4 (out of 10). Singapore and Sweden both receive a score of 9.3.

CORRUPTION INDEX: Cambodia ranks 162 among 180 countries - Transparency International

Source: Transparency International