"It does not mean that corruption in Bangladesh has gone down," said Professor Muzaffer Ahmad, chairman of the board of trustees of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), releasing the report at a news briefing in the National Press Club in Dhaka yesterday.

Bangladesh no longer occupies the last place on the index, which is attributable more to poorer performance of several other countries than to a drop in corruption in Bangladesh, TI explained.

"My personal experience is that corruption has worsened in the country," the TIB chairman observed.

In a scale of 0-10, Bangladesh along with Chad, Congo and Democratic Republic of Sudan jointly ranked third from below having scored 2 points.

Among the Asian countries, Bangladesh was mentioned together with Myanmar and Cambodia where lack of political will to strengthen anti-corruption institutions has perpetuated rampant corruption, undermining improvements in quality of life for the poorest citizens, TIB said.

The country scored 1.7 points last year and had been at the bottom of the list for five successive years from 2001 to 2005.

In a scale of 0-10, the index provides international ranking of countries in terms of perceived degree of prevalence of political and administrative corruption.

Haiti ranked at the bottom of this year's list scoring 1.8 while Guinea, Iraq and Myanmar jointly occupied the second position from below having scored 1.9 points.

Among the South Asian neighbours Pakistan ranked 142nd from the top with a score of 2.2 points, Nepal 121st with 2.5 points, Sri Lanka 84th with 3.1 points, and India 70th having scored 3.3 points.

Finland, Iceland and New Zealand jointly ranked first from the top with 9.6 points followed by rampant corruption, undermining improvements in quality of life for the poorest citizens, TIB said.

The country scored 1.7 points last year and had been at the bottom of the list for five successive years from 2001 to 2005.

In a scale of 0-10, the index provides international ranking of countries in terms of perceived degree of prevalence of political and administrative corruption.

Haiti ranked at the bottom of this year's list scoring 1.8 while Guinea, Iraq and Myanmar jointly occupied the second position from below having scored 1.9 points.

Among the South Asian neighbours Pakistan ranked 142nd from the top with a score of 2.2 points, Nepal 121st with 2.5 points, Sri Lanka 84th with 3.1 points, and India 70th having scored 3.3 points.

Finland, Iceland and New Zealand jointly ranked first from the top with 9.6 points followed by Denmark with 9.5 points.

A total of 163 countries were included on the index this year. A country's rank can change simply because new countries enter the index or others drop out. This year five countries had been dropped while nine new countries entered the list.

Seventy-one countries out of the 163 have scores below 3 points, indicating that worldwide corruption is perceived as rampant. A strong correlation between corruption and poverty is evident in the results of the CPI 2006.

Almost three-quarters of the countries scored below five points (including all low-income countries and all but two African states) indicating that the higher the prevalence of corruption, the higher is the extent of poverty and underdevelopment.

CPI ranks countries annually in terms of the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians.

It is a composite index prepared through a poll of polls, using corruption-related data from a number of expert surveys involving business leaders and analysts. It also includes assessments of country experts living within and outside the country concerned.

While industrialised countries continue to score relatively high on the CPI 2006, major corruption scandals remain in many of them. Although corruption in developed countries may have less impact on poverty and development than in developing countries, these scandals demonstrate that there is no room for complacency in the developed world also, TI said.

TIB also said it has no role in preparing the CPI. TI secretariat in Berlin prepares the ranking. TIB, like any other national chapter of TI, is not involved nor does it provide any information that goes into the index, the Bangladesh chapter of TI said.

While TIB has its own anti-corruption research, advocacy, and citizens' participation programmes in the country, as a national chapter of TI in Bangladesh its responsibility, as far as CPI goes, is no more than facilitating its release when the report is available.

CPI 2006 is a result of 12 such surveys conducted by nine internationally reputed independent institutions.

In case of Bangladesh, sources of data for the index are six surveys conducted by five organisations namely Country Policy and Institutional Assessment 2005 by the World Bank, Country Risk Service and Country Forecast 2006 by Economist Intelligence Unit, Grey Area Dynamics 2006 by Merchant International Group, Global Competitiveness Report of 2005 and 2006 by World Economic Forum, and Risk Ratings 2006 by the World Markets Research Centre.

Dr Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of TIB, and other officials were also present at the briefing.
Top 10 Corrupt Countries

Country	Score
Haiti	1.8
Myanmar	1.9
Iraq	1.9
Guinea	1.9
Sudan	2
DR Congo 2.0	2
Chad	2
Bangladesh	2
Uzbekistan	2.1
Equatorial Guinea	2.1