Taking the lead again!!
Dr. Ijaz A. Qureshi
Tuesday, 17 Nov, 2009
BERLIN: Graft watchdog Transparency International hit out at rich countries over shady banking practices on Tuesday as it published its annual rankings naming and shaming the world’s most corrupt countries.
‘Corrupt money must not find safe haven. It is time to put an end to excuses,’ said the Berlin-based group’s head Huguette Labelle.
‘Even industrialised countries cannot be complacent: the supply of bribery and the facilitation of corruption often involve businesses based in their countries,’ the report said.
In the wake of the financial crisis, the Group of 20 (G20) industrialised countries turned up the heat on tax havens, targeting rich countries with long-held banking secrecy laws like Liechtenstein and Switzerland.
But Labelle said extra efforts were imperative, calling for more bilateral treaties on information exchange in order to ‘to fully end the secrecy regime.’
Overall, the 2009 corruption list is ‘of great concern,’ the organisation said, with the majority of countries scoring under five in the ranking, which ranges from zero, highly corrupt and 10, which is very clean.
With a score of 2.7, Pakistan was ranked 139 out of the 180 countries on the list, a position it shares with fellow South Asian nation Bangladesh, the SE Asian country Philippines and the Baltic state of Belarus.
The bottom five nations — Somalia, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sudan and Iraq — show that ‘countries which are perceived as the most corrupt are also those plagued by long-standing conflicts, which have torn apart their governance infrastructure,’ TI said.
The five countries seen as least afflicted by corruption were New Zealand, Denmark, Singapore, Sweden — and Switzerland.
New Zealand scored 9.4 points whereas Somalia scored 1.0 points.
The score is based on perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business people and country analysts. —AFP
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Most Respectfully,
Dr. Ijaz A. Qureshi
Dean, School of Management Sciences,
Sarhad University, 36 - B, Chinar Road, University Town, Peshawar 25000. Pakistan
I http://www.suit.edu.pk I Email: Ijaza....@gmail.com I Skype: IjazQureshi I Cell: +92 344 525 3727 I Office Tel: +92 91 584 6508 Ext 223 I Office Fax: +92 91 584 1460
If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it? - Einstein
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