Indonesia remains most corrupt economy in Asia
Indonesia remains most corrupt economy in Asia
Agencies, Singapore
Corruption in Indonesia is becoming worse, according to the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC), which ranked the country the most corrupt among 12 national economies in Asia covered by its latest survey of some 1,000 expatriate businessmen working in the region.
"It is hard to believe that the problem of corruption in Indonesia could grow worse, but that is what is happening. The entire national legal system is in shambles, so the courts do not offer much protection," the Hong Kong-based PERC said was quoted by AFP as saying.
In a scale of one to ten with ten being the worst possible score, Indonesia was seen as the most corrupt with a grade of 9.92, its worst score since the survey started in 1995.
Last year, Indonesia's grade was 9.50, or the second most corrupt economy after Vietnam.
The PERC survey confirms results of a poll by Berlin-based Transparency International (TI), which last year ranked Indonesia the fourth most corrupt country among 91 countries surveyed.
According to TI, Indonesia's corruption perceptions index in 2001 was 1.9 out of a clean score of 10, indicating a very high level of perceived corruption.
With that score, perceived corruption in Indonesia was slightly better than Uganda, Nigeria and Bangladesh.
In 2000, Indonesia's position in TI's poll was even worse, ranked the third most corrupt country after Nigeria and Cameron. The same year, TI surveyed perceived corruption in 99 countries.
TI has not issued the results of its survey this year. It usually issues its findings in June.
Judging from the results of the PERC survey, the TI poll this year is expected to place Indonesia among the most corrupt countries.
The PERC survey also revealed that corruption remains high in the rest of the region.
After Indonesia, India was the second most corrupt national economy this year with a score of 9.17, slightly down from 9.25 last year.
Vietnam got the third worst score of 8.25, but this was sharply down from 9.75 in 2001.
The Philippines, where the level of corruption was described by PERC as "bad", scored 8.0, an improvement on last year's 9.0.
PERC noted a "marked improvement" in the Philippines after President Gloria Arroyo took over from Joseph Estrada last year, but stressed that Manila's score remained well below the average.
Taiwan was graded 5.83, beating China's 7.00, which was an improvement on its 7.88 rating in 2001.
According to PERC, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong have the least corrupt economies in Asia. Only these countries scored above the average grade of five.
"Of the countries covered here, only Singapore really stands out as having a reputation that matches or even surpasses that of developed Western economies like the U.S., the UK and Australia," PERC said.
Malaysia was judged the fourth least corrupt with a score of 5.71, better than the 6.0 it got in 2001, followed by South Korea with 5.75, down from 7.0 last year.
In Malaysia, the problem "has been more one of poor corporate governance than outright corruption".
The survey revealed that perceived corruption is lower compared to a year ago in the majority of the region's economies.
However, "with the exception of a couple of countries in Asia, the problem of corruption remains far too high for comfort," it said.