SA records its lowest score on Corruption Perceptions Index

Takudzwa Pongweni | Daily Maverick

South Africa now falls into the category of ‘flawed democracies’. The latest annual Corruption Perceptions Index says efforts to fight public sector corruption are faltering. The index partly blames a global decline in justice and the rule of law.

Transparency International on Tuesday released its annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) report. 

The CPI is the leading global indicator of public sector corruption, providing an annual comparative snapshot of 180 countries and territories. 

The index for 2023 is calculated using data from 13 external sources. It ranks the countries and territories around the world by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, scoring on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).

“These are generally the perceptions of international business people of levels of corruption. What we know from our experience in State Capture is that corruption is a globalised phenomenon and that many of the people who are the biggest perpetrators of economic crimes are not only our political elites but are also corrupt auditing companies, corrupt banks, corrupt management consultancies – and most of them have their headquarters or a significant presence in countries that are often perceived by the CPI index to be the least corrupt,” Hennie van Vuuren