Transparency International as one of the global civil society organizations leading the fight against corruption has publicly announced the results of its 2014 Corruption Perception Index. Turkey′s Improvements During the Last 6 Years has been Zero D
TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL′S CORRUPTION PERCEPTION INDEX 2014 HAS BEEN RELEASED
Transparency International as one of the global civil society organizations leading the fight against corruption has publicly announced the results of its 2014 Corruption Perception Index.
Turkey′s Improvements During the Last 6 Years has been Zero Down!
Among 175 countries in the 2014 Index, Turkey′s score has the utmost decline by 5 points.
Turkey′s score was 50 in the 2013 Index, but it has fallen back to 45 in the 2014. By this sudden decline, Turkey has reset its improvement during the last 6 years. According to country rankings, while Turkey was 53rd in the 2013 Index, this year it ranks as the 64thcountry. This obvious decline of Turkey′s ranking in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2014 indicates an adversely and unfavourable deterioration on reforms that have been reported as improvement during the last few years.
According to the CPI 2014 results, while Turkey and Macedonia (FYROM) tie for 27th place out of 38 European states, they are the second best performers among 6 EU candidate states, scoring 45 points each. Among 19 G20 member states, Turkey ranks as the 10th state. Additionally, compared with 20 MENA countries, Turkeyranks as the 7th country.
%69 of the 175 countries in the 2014 Index score below 50 on a scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 100 (perceived to be very clean). In the CPI 2014 while Denmark is the best performer with its score of 92, New Zealand (91) and Finland (89) follow it respectively. North Korea and Somalia this year make up the worst performers, both scoring just 8 points.
These results clearly demonstrate that public institutions and officials around the world should develop much more transparent, proper and accountable policies.
How to Interpret Turkey′s Decline?
There is no doubt that Turkey′s decline in the ranking of the Corruption Perception Index 2014 reflects its adverse and unstable performance regarding its fight against corruption during the last year.
This sharp decline of Turkey′s score in the 2014 Index can also be interpreted as a global response raised by the result of strict restrictions on the freedom of speech and expression, freedom of media, increasing censorship on internet and social media, publicly sensible pressure on judiciary and obvious unlawful implementations in Turkey.
In the social and political sense, the results of the 2014 Index emphasize that the issue of corruption has became a question of democracy and freedom of speech and expression. In this context, Transparency International states that fast-growing economies -Turkey is also considered as one of them- has been developing a culture of impunity leading increase in corruption. Therefore, it calls them to embrace a culture of transparency, which is indispensable for a democratic and accountable society.
It is thought that international data released by Transparency International would have an impact on foreign direct investments in Turkey in the coming days. According to the 2014 CPI results, when Turkey′s score is compared with the scores of the countries that are in a strict economical cooperation and competition with Turkey, Turkey is seen in a downtrend in order to meet the international standards. As this situation increases Turkey′s political and economic risks, it would impact national and multinational corporations operating in Turkey directly. One has to keep in mind that it is
unavoidable to have a poor economic growth and high-cost production in the countries, where corruption perceptions are high and there is no culture of transparency, therefore, this situation would harm the nation′s overall economy and its people.
According to all of the Corruption Perception Indexes released by Transparency International since 1995, when examined Turkey′s all scores and places in the country rankings, it is clear that the country has come to a standstill during the last 20 years. This situation demonstrates that the issue of fight against corruption and transparency have been deepened, especially in public sector in Turkey. Also, this reveals that necessary and sufficient steps for improvement and enhancement of these issues have not been taken yet.
The results of the 2014 CPI draw attention to the existence of important deficiencies concerning the question of “transparency” in Turkey. In that regard, the results of the 2014 index should be interpreted as “Turkey has to make progress on the fights against corruption and the issue of transparency and the authorities should take concrete steps regarding these issues as soon as possible”.
The Methodology of the Corruption Perception Index2014
The 2014 CPI draws on data sources from 12 different surveys of 11 international institutions specialising in governance and business climate analysis for 175 countries. The Corruption Perceptions Index is based on experts′ and business people′s opinions of public sector corruption. Index has a scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 100 (perceived to be very clean) in order to rank countries.
Turkey′s score was identified by the contents and results of 8 surveys out of these 12 international surveys. These 8 surveys are “Bertelsmann Stiftung Sustainable Governance Indicators 2014”, “Bertelsmann Stiftung Transformation Index 2014”, “IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2014”, “Political Risk Services International Country Risk Guide 2014”, “World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey (EOS) 2014”, “World Justice Project Rule of Law Index 2014”, “Economist Intelligence Unit Country Risk Ratings 2014” and “Global Insight Country Risk Ratings 2014
