Corruption: No Change in Armenia
Transparency International, the world’s leading anti-corruption watchdog, today released its annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI). According to the organization based in Germany but with a Chapter in Armenia, there is no progress in the fight against corruption here. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s English language site has more.
An international anti-corruption watchdog has ranked Armenia 93rd among 163 nations by its level of corruption, which is neither progress nor regress against last year’s study results.
In the rankings released on Monday Transparency International cited its annual Corruption Perceptions Index study in which Armenia has the index score of 2.9 along with Argentina, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Eritrea, Syria and Tanzania.
The index score relates to perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business people and country analysts and ranges between zero, which is highly corrupt, and 10, which is very clean.
Amalia Kostanian, head of the Armenian branch of Transparency International, says the findings reflect only the opinions of entrepreneurs and experts.
“Our studies evaluating public opinion depict a grimmer picture. We have received much more negative data and will publish it soon,” she told RFE/RL.
Kostanian describes the work of the anti-corruption commission in 2006 as ineffective and says that it met only once in the last ten months.
Interestingly, while Armenia remains at the same level as last year, some progress is registered in Azerbaijan and Georgia. Last year, Armenia’s two neighbours in the South Caucasus scored 2.0 and 2.3, but this year their position improved with 2.4 and 2.8, respectively.
In 2004 their scores were 1.9 and 2.0, so that’s really quite a change — although still nothing to be proud of.
At this rate, while Azerbaijan will probably always remain more corrupt than Armenia, Georgia will likely surpass Armenia in the next few years, proving beyond a doubt that political will to combat corruption is crucial. Given Transparency International’s recent presentation in Yerevan, I think it’s pretty obvious that there’s no real interest in fighting corruption here.
Anyway, some interviews from 2004 with the Chairperson, Amalia Kostanyan, and Executive Director, Sona Ayvazyan, of Transparency International’s branch in Armenia are available here, here, and here. The Center for Regional Development / Transparency International Armenia has a web site here.
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Comment by Onnik — November 6, 2006 @ 10:50 pm
People interviewed for corruption is quite limited , thus study has limited value…but , I hope that business people would like to see it improved….
Comment by Garo — November 8, 2006 @ 2:01 am