KZBlog

The Corruption Perceptions Index for 2007 from Transparency International was released on the 27th of September. A table of the results can be found here. Kazakhstan, with a score of 2.1 out of 10, is tied with Azerbaijan, the Republic of Congo, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Tajikistan, Zimbabwe and 5 other countries as 150th for corruption in the public sphere out of 179 rankings. Regionally, that puts it in 14th place with only Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan scoring lower in Central Asia and Eastern Europe.

This signifies a serious drop for Kazakhstan, which scored 2.6 in 2006 and 2005, after rising from a score of 2004 of 2.2. This year is the lowest Kazakhstan has scored in 9 year.

As numerous news media sources are pointing out, this whole thing is rather embarrassing in the face of so much anti-corruption rhetoric in the past two years. Some of the highlights of this year’s Address to the People of Kazakhstan were shots at corrupt bureaucrats. But implementation never happened for a few obvious reasons: Mainly, the government cannot monitor itself. Involving the people of Kazakhstan is difficult as well. The people of the country tend say, “What did you expect? Our country is corrupt.” And the whole thing ends.

It would be nice if this was used as a motivator. For all the attempts to motivate the people of Kazakhstan by telling them not to shame their country internationally, corruption would seem to be an area where shame could be an effective motivator. Instead of people feeling resigned, perhaps they could be moved to act: “Every time you give or take a bribe, another American believes Borat is real,” would be a catchy slogan. Unfortunately as long as the government is the monitor of corruption in the government, the problem will never be solved for the obvious reasons.

The CPI measures corruption in public organizations–not private business or other spheres. It is an indexing of 12 different surveys that measure the perceptions of corruption in these nations. These surveys variously cover uses of public offices for personal gain, efforts to fight corruption, existence of opportunities for corruption, conflicts of interest of politicians and public officeholders and bribery. These surveys were administered by a variety of organizations including the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, Freedom House, the World Economic Forum and the Economist Magazine. Respondents include business people, experts, expatriates, and journalists. The survey is not a direct measure of corruption, but a measure of perceived corruption.

The full methodology can be found here