Korea ranks 43rd in corruption-perceptions index

By Yoon Ja-young

Korea ranked 43rd in the corruption-perceptions index among 175 countries, Transparency International said Wednesday.

Despite notable economic growth, Korea is still lagging behind its peers in terms of transparency. It has especially made no improvement in terms of transparency during the past few years.

Transparency International, a Berlin-based global organization dedicated to anti-corruption, released the 2014 corruption-perceptions index Wednesday.

The index measures how corrupt a country’s public sector is perceived to be, based on surveys and assessments. It is one of the most widely used indicators of corruption worldwide.

Korea scored 55 points, making it 27th among the 34 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries.

Denmark was perceived to be the most transparent, scoring 92 points, followed by New Zealand. Finland and Sweden, the Nordic countries that are generally perceived to be transparent, proved to be so again, ranking third and fourth, respectively. In Asia, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong were transparent. Singapore was ranked seventh, Japan 15th and Hong Kong 17th.

North Korea, meanwhile, scored only 8 points, ranking 174th along with Somalia.

The United States ranked at 17th, and China stood at 100th. China scored less than in the last survey despite economic growth.

“China’s score fell to 36 in 2014 from 40 in 2013, despite the fact the Chinese government launched an anti-corruption campaign targeting public officials. The government has recognized the need to track officials who hide ill-gotten gains overseas,” Transparency International said in a press release.

What is disappointing is that Korea has made no improvement during the past six years ― it ranked 40th in 2008 with 56 points.

“The fall in the transparency index is due to the policy failures by the government and a lack of strong will to root out corruption,” a spokesman for Transparency International Korea said.

“The government should take full responsibility for this. It should make the corruption issue a top priority in the national agenda, and examine its anti-corruption policies and redesign them,” he added.

More concretely, Transparency International Korea suggested the government restore its independent anti-corruption body, set up an investigative body dedicated to corruption scandals of ranking officials and expand protection of whistleblowers.

It added that the Sewol ferry disaster that left more than 300 people dead or missing was also triggered by corruption. It was revealed that the government has not properly examined the safety of the ship.

“The recent corruption scandal over domestic defense projects is no exception. The whole country is suffering corruption and the vulnerable and poor people are losing their lives and assets due to corruption,” the spokesman said.

“The insensitivity to corruption and moral hazard of those in power leads to a lack of leadership to overcome social crisis,” he added.