In an article published in The Sunday Gleaner last, Professor Trevor Munroe, director of the National Integrity Action Forum, seems elated at the improvement over previous years in Jamaica's score and global ranking in the 2010 Corruption Perception Index (CPI). Elation here, in my view, is premature, as our score and ranking are not that good.

The CPI, published annually by Transparency International, the global civil society coalition against corruption, scales from '0' which is 'highly corrupt' to '10' which is 'very clean'. Jamaica increased from a CPI score of 3.0 in 2009 to 3.3 in 2010 - quite a low score, and nothing to be proud of. It reminds me of when I was a high school teacher, and a student would run up to me and ask for praise because his failing grade had increased from 20 per cent to 30 per cent.

And so, yes, Jamaica increased its ranking from 99 out of 180 countries (2009) to 87 out of 178 countries (2010). There are just about as many countries worse than us as those better than us. A mediocre performance at best.

But we must remember that the CPI is not a corruption index but a perception of corruption index. It is difficult to measure government corruption directly, so what one has to do is try for an indirect measure: ask people who do business with Jamaica about their experience of corruption in Jamaica, and what impression they have of corruption in Jamaica. And so you end up with an index of the perception of corruption, rather than an actual measure of corruption itself. And then you make the big assumption that where there is smoke there also is fire. So if there is perception of corruption, then corruption must be present.

Transparency International did not itself conduct a global survey; what it did was to take the results of global surveys conducted by other organisations and combine them into one index (for 2010 the four global surveys used were: the Bertelsmann Stiftung Transformation Index; the Economist Intelligence Unit Country Risk and Country Forecast; the IHS Global Insight Country Risk Ratings; and the World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey). Readers will quickly see that Jamaican input into this perception index is limited. The CPI is 'as others see us', not 'as we see ourselves'.

And so over the last decade, outsiders have generally given us a grade of around 3 or 4, definitely on the corrupt side of the scale.

Poor score

We can quibble about whether it is 3.0 or 3.3, and whether we rank 81 from the bottom or 91 from the bottom globally; but it is a poor score, and a poor rank, and nothing to be proud of, and certainly nothing to celebrate.

But what do Jamaicans think? Prior to 2008, corruption did not even appear as a significant issue of concern in public opinion polls (you would have to say that before 2008 'perception of corruption' was quite low among the Jamaican public; corruption was definitely present, but was not perceived to be a major problem). But in a 2008 Don Anderson Poll, which asked what was the main thing wrong with Jamaica, 57 per cent replied "Too much crime and violence", and 21 per cent said "Too much corruption". After many hours of talk shows and hundreds of newspaper columns, corruption had finally appeared on the public radar (as the second-ranked major issue of concern).

But watch this: in a 2010 Don Anderson Poll, which asked what was the most negative thing about Jamaica, 53 per cent replied "corruption", and 40 per cent said "breakdown of law and order". This year, for the first time at last, corruption, as a major problem, has moved to the number one spot! We would have to conclude that for Jamaicans, the perception of corruption is increasing rapidly. Does this mean that corruption itself is also increasing rapidly?

Let me ask a facetious question: Is the CPI suggesting that public corruption is declining, while the Don Anderson Poll suggests that corruption is increasing?

There are all sorts of factors which create perceptions, one of which is reality itself. I have no doubt that the existence and activism of organisations like the National Integrity Action Forum (which counts both the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Contractor General as members) does help to create the perception that public corruption is declining in Jamaica. Let us move from perception to reality. Let us have some real collaboration between all those who want to see our CPI score increase to around 7 or 8. Then we will have good reason to be elated.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a Roman Catholic deacon. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.