08 November 2006


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Malta less corrupt than most new EU member states

James Debono

Malta emerges as the least corrupt among the new European Union countries with the exception of Estonia which ranks better and Slovenia which is as corrupt as Malta.
But compared to similar indexes issued in 2005 and 2004, Malta has slipped three places and lost points in its corruption index.
The Corruption Perceptions Index is published by Transparency International, which currently ranks 150 countries. Each country’s score is related to perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business people and country analysts. The index focuses on corruption in the public sector.
Malta currently has an index of 5.4-7.3 and ranks 28 from the 150 countries ranked. Malta is more corrupt than 13 European Union countries as well as countries like the USA, Barbados, Macao and Chile.
But Malta is perceived to be less corrupt than a number of old, new and prospective EU member states like Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Latvia, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey and Poland.
In 2005 Malta was ranked in 25th place with a rating of 5.4-7.3. On that occasion Malta was placed one place ahead of Portugal which has managed to overtake Malta in this year’s survey. In the 2004 index, Malta did even better; scoring between 5.3 and 8.2.
The survey draws on corruption data in expert surveys carried out by reputable. The information on Malta is attributed to four unmentioned surveys.

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