Transparency International has released its latest Corruption Perception Index for 2021. According to its details, Nigeria ranks 154 out of the 180 countries ranked.
This is the lowest ranking for the country in seven years from 2015 till 2021. Nigeria scored 24 points out of a possible hundred.
The Corruption Perception Index Ranking is done by Transparency International using the perceived levels of public sector corruption. The index currently ranks 180 countries.
Fighting corruption was President Buhari’s rallying cry as he came into office in 2015 and perhaps the people believed in this at the beginning of his administration because the perception score went up to 28 in 2016, 2 points over the 2015 score. Since 2016, the score has continued to drop hitting a record low for the administration in the recently released rankings. The President’s scorecard on fighting corruption has remained poor, and he has even been accused of giving room for corruption to thrive in the country
Among other things, harmonizing financial transactions in the public sector through the Treasury Single Account is one of the administration’s initiatives for tackling corruption in the private sector. Despite measures such as this, public sector corruption is still widespread.
The United Nations Development Program listed Open Data, Transparency, Accountability in procurement as some of the practices needed to fight corruption effectively. However MDAs have continued to fly in the face of these stipulations.
The 2019 audit report revealed the many ways ministries, agencies and departments are resisting measures for accountability and transparency. Form late submission of audit reports to failure to comply with recommendations and outrightly disobeying laws.
The Nigerian government may continue to sound the gong of “fighting corruption” , data however, says differently.
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