By Trudy Simpson, Staff ReporterJAMAICA HAS moved closer to being named highly corrupt, a new report from Transparency International is showing.
Jamaica slipped to 3.8 on a scoring scale, which relates to perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by resident and non-resident business people, academics and risk analysts.
The scale ranges from 10 (highly clean) to 0 (highly corrupt) and also reflects perceived levels of corruption among politicians and public servants.
The 2003 report, which surveyed 133 countries, showed that Jamaica has slipped below last year's ranking of 4.0, a move which may hamper the country's efforts to attract investment, said Beth Aub, a member of Jamaica's chapter of Transparency International, an organisation seeking to curb corruption.
She said the ranking could affect the country's ability to attract investments, "because this is one of the areas that investors look at.
"What it means is that we are more corrupt than perceived last year therefore it is less likely that people are going to want to invest here," she said yesterday.
Godfrey Dyer, head of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), was concerned the stigma of being thought corrupt would hurt Jamaica although corruption was "not everywhere".
"I would think that any country that carries that low number when it comes to corruption would have a problem with investment. I don't think it's across the board and many people who have done business here would have found that out. We just have to hope that (score) will not cause things to be worse than they are because we really need investment," Mr. Dyer said.
He said that although efforts are being made to correct some of the country's expenditure problems, "we all have to pressure Government to ensure that we get rid of corruption because it is not helping anybody. It makes the country worse. Just the stigma is bad enough. Whatever we need to do, we will have to do it," he added.
Officials from the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) and the Corruption Prevention Commission declined to comment yesterday, stating they needed time to review the report.
Ms. Aub noted that Jamaica's lower ranking results from 31 additional countries joining the list this year. Some of the new entrants such as Cuba, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Botswana, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bolivia, rank above Jamaica.
Other regional countries ranking above Jamaica included Trinidad and Tobago which ranked 4.6, Belize, 4.5 and Costa Rica 4.3.
Caribbean and Latin American countries seen as worse than Jamaica included the Dominican Republic 3.3 and Haiti 1.5.
LEAST PERCEIVED CORRUPTION
The report named Finland 9.7, Iceland 9.6, Denmark 9.5 and New Zealand 9.5 as countries with the least perceived corruption. The United Kingdom and Canada tied at 8.7 while the United States was 7.5. At the bottom of the scale is Bangladesh which is ranked 1.3.
