—Iftekharuzzaman—

Transparency International has released the annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2024 on 11 February 2025. Bangladesh has scored 23 out of 100, one point less than 2023, and has been ranked two steps lower from top at 151st, two steps lower than 2023. Our 2024 score is Bangladesh’s worst since 2012, which has given us three disappointing designations.

We are placed among countries that are “losing control of corruption”. We are also among countries that having scored below 50 are considered to have a ‘serious corruption problem’, while a 20 points lower score compared to the global average of 43 qualifies us as having a ‘very serious corruption problem’.

Bangladesh’s 2024 score is 14th lowest among 180 countries or territories included in the index. Bangladesh remains second lowest in South Asia after only Afghanistan and 5th lowest in the Asia-Pacific region.

More specifically, our 2024 score is three points lower than 2012, 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018; and five points lower than the highest score of 28 achieved in 2017. Bangladesh is the only South Asian country other than Sri Lanka with a score of 29 that has lost points. Notably, both were under the worst form of authoritarianism ousted by people power.

Furthermore, Bangladesh’s performance is nine points worse than the average for the 59 authoritarian regimes of the world. It is 6 points lower than the average for 33 countries with lowest HDI and 6 points lower than 27 countries that were categorised in 2023 as having closed civil society space.

Equally embarrassingly, our score is 10 points lower than the average for Sub-Saharan Africa that performs worst as per regional comparative analysis of the index.

As in previous occasions, no country has scored 100 per cent. That suggests corruption remains a global problem. The CPI 2024 also reveals that most countries have made little or no progress in tackling public sector corruption since 2012.

Compared to 2023, overall global scores have worsened. For 93 the score has declined compared to 63 in 2023. As many as 122 countries (67.77 per cent) have scored below 50 and 101 countries (56.11 per cent) below the global average of 43.  This means that over 80 per cent of the world’s population live with a ‘very serious corruption problem’.

Over a quarter of the countries or territories (47) got their lowest scores yet since 2012. Low scoring countries like Bangladesh, Brazil, Cuba, Russia and Sri Lanka are joined in this club by high scorers like France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and the United States.

The rot in the top translates into global discrimination. However, 25 countries including Bhutan, South Korea, Laos, Saudi Arabia have scored their highest for the period since 2012. For the seventh year in a row, Denmark has topped the list having scored 90, followed by Finland (88) and Singapore (84).

Among Bangladesh’s South Asian neighbours, Bhutan continues to be the best performer scoring 72, which is 4 points higher than 2023 and 9 points higher than 2012. In the rest of the region scores remained well below the global average: India and Maldives (38), Nepal 34, Sri Lanka 32, Pakistan (27) and Afghanistan (17).

All South Asian countries except Bhutan have lost scores compared to 2023. However, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the two most authoritarian states of the region have scored their lowest in 12 years since 2012, whereas all other South Asian countries have gained compared to 2012, except Pakistan unchanged.

Among Bangladesh’s non-South Asian neighbours, South Korea scored 64, Vietnam (40), Indonesia (37), Thailand (34), and Laos and Philippines (33).

This year’s worst performers are South Sudan at the bottom with a score of 8, followed by Somalia (9), Venezuela (10), Syria 12, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya and Yemen (13), Nicaragua (14), North Korea and Sudan (15) Myanmar and Haiti (16), and Afghanistan, Burundi and Turkmenistan (17, and Tajikistan (19).

The key message of CPI 2024 is that corruption is more than a developmental challenge. As an outcome of unaccountable abuse of power, deepening corruption is a threat to democracy, stability, human rights and justice. Though high scoring countries appear to have lower levels of corruption, financial hubs in many of these countries operate as demand side facilitators of money laundering that benefits such countries at the expense of lower scorers.

The highest beneficiaries of Bangladesh’s corruption in terms of money laundering are ironically among the top performers like the third ranked Singapore (84), Switzerland 5th (80), Australia 10th (77), Canada 15th (75), Hong Kong 17th (74), the United Kingdom 20th (71), the United Arab Emirates (UAE) 23th (68), the United States 28th (65), and Malaysia 57th (50).

Leading rich countries of North America and Europe are also seeing decline in scores, indicating failure to implement anti-corruption commitments. The failure is particularly reflected in terms of delivering their global funding commitment to address climate change for the worst affected countries.

For the same reason, many of them are also facing domestic challenges in multiple levels including climate crisis, erosion of rule law and public services.

Anti-corruption must be mainstreamed in national and international development policies across the world in order to control and prevent the devastating effects of corruption on development, democracy, human rights and justice. Implications of failure to do so were experienced by Bangladesh over the whole period of 16 years of authoritarian rule.

The data period for CPI 2024 witnessed the peak of kleptocracy-driven authoritarianism. Instead of action against corruption, the political and governance systems were used to promote and protect corruption.

Widespread public sector corruption further intensified especially in public contracting and project implementation. No effective action was taken despite concrete evidence-based exposures of high level corruption and money laundering.

State institutions mandated to control corruption including ACC, public administration, law enforcement and judicial institutions continued to operate under partisan political influence, which was a key factor behind the poor performance.

Even after the fall of the authoritarian regime, evidence of continued abuse of power and corrupt practices, including extortion and turf war for capture of corruption hotspots, persisted during the data period in political and governance space. Risks also persisted in terms of freedom of dissent, free media and civic space, which may have been reflected in the CPI performance of Bangladesh.

The way out is no rocket science. Recommendations of the Anti-Corruption Reform Commission must be implemented with a specific focus on its true independence and accountability. Examples of concrete success must be set in holding to account the highly level corrupt individuals and entities on a priority basis. State institutions must be depoliticised to ensure professional integrity and excellence, especially ACC, bureaucracy, law-enforcement and judicial service.

Effective measures must be in place to salvage the crucial sectors of public interest from the clutches of policy capture, conflict of interest and partisan political and other influences.

These include public procurement, banking, trade, power and energy, health, education, land and infrastructure. Freedom of media, civil society and people at large must be ensured for unrestricted disclosure, reporting and raising voice against corruption.

Above all, our political and bureaucratic culture and practices must be transformed to be free from treating political and public positions as a license to private gains.

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* The author is the executive director of the Transparency International Bangladesh *