Transparency International rates Czechs 42nd

The Czech Republic is one of the many countries in the world where bribery and other forms of corruption are rife. On Wednesday Peter Eigen, chairman of the Transparency International organisation, unveiled the Year 2000 Corruption Perceptions Index. Among the 90 countries surveyed, the Czech Republic came about half way--in 42nd place. Lucie Krupickova has more:

Transparency International is a non-governmental organisation whose aim is to fight bribery and corruption. It was established in 1993 in Berlin by Peter Eigen, the former director of the World Bank in East Africa. The Czech branch of Transparency International was founded in June 1998 as the organisation´s 65th national department.

According to this year's Corruption Perceptions Index, or CPI, Finland, Denmark, New Zealand, Sweden, Singapore and Canada are virtually corruption-free. At the other end of the scale are countries such as Nigeria, Yugoslavia and the Ukraine, where corruption is perceived as rampant. The CPI is based on a three-year rolling average of surveys of business people, risk analysts and the public, with a maximum possible score of 10 points, which means highly clean and a minimum of zero that is highly corrupt.

The Czech Republic scored 4.4. This is the worst score since 1997 when Transparency International started producing the CPI Index. Last year the country was rated 39th and in 1998 27th. Corruption in the Czech Republic is higher not only than all EU member states but also Estonia, Slovenia, Hungary and some Asian, South American and African countries.

The director of the Czech branch of Transparency International, Michal Burian, said the result gave little cause for satisfaction. In his words the result was partly caused by the nationwide discussion of the issue. Mr. Burian at the same time pointed out that one could not compare this year´s survey with those from previous years. Every year both the survey methods and number of monitored countries have varied.