Moscow Times August 29, 2002 Russia Fares Better in Annual Corruption Index By Valeria Korchagina Staff Writer
Russia is seen as slightly less corrupt than last year, but is still in the bottom third of a ranking conducted by the Berlin-based Transparency International corruption watchdog and released Wednesday.
Russia tied with Tanzania, India, Zimbabwe, Cote d'Ivoire and Honduras for 71st place out of 102 countries included in the annual Corruption Perceptions Index.
Finland took first in the ranking as the least corrupt country and Bangladesh was last.
Russia was 79th out of 91 countries last year, having been ranked 82nd out of 99 in 2000 and 82nd out of 90 in 1999.
Countries are ranked on a scale of zero to 10, with 10 indicating the lowest level of corruption.
The ranking was conducted by nine corporate and noncorporate organizations -- including the World Bank, Columbia University, the Economist Intelligence Unit and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The organizations conducted between three and 15 surveys in which they interviewed businessmen, analysts and locals in each country.
Russia scored 2.7, while Finland received 9.7 points and Bangladesh had 1.2.
Russia was judged as less corrupt than most other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States also surveyed. But Belarus and Uzbekistan scored higher.
Russia had one of the largest deviations between highest and lowest scores in the surveys, said Yury Baturin, head of Transparency International in Russia.
The country was assigned scores as low as 1.5 and as high as 5.
"Five is the lowest for Germany, which means that what is considered the best in Russia is the worst in Germany," he said.
Germany was ranked 18th with 7.3 points.
"But I believe that one should really look at the lowest range because that is where the problems are," Baturin said.
A score of 1.5 would put Russia before Bangladesh and after notoriously corrupt Nigeria.
Baturin said 12 surveys were carried out in Russia, the maximum for non-African nations.
Belarus managed to take 36th place, but that rating was awarded based on the minimum of three surveys, he said.
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