Sultanate among least corrupt nations in Arab world

The Sultanate has been ranked 68th on the annual Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International.

According to the global corruption potential league table compiled by the global agency, New Zealand is the world’s least corrupt country and Somalia the most corrupt.

In the Arab world, Oman, the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia do better than Tunisia.

While the UAE has moved to the 21st position in 2017, Saudi Arabia was placed 57th on the index. Countries in the GCC such as Oman and Kuwait were placed 68th and 85th respectively, but witnessed a drop in their scores for 2017.

However, Oman’s score fell one point to 44, while Kuwait’s score dropped two points to reach 39 in 2017. Similarly, Bahrain witnessed the biggest drop, with its score plummeting from 43 in 2016 to 36 in 2017.

The index, which ranks countries and territories by perceived levels of public 180 their sector corruption according to experts and business people, uses a scale of 0-100, where zero is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.

This year, the index found that more than two-thirds of countries score below 50, with an average score of 43.

With 42 points, Tunisia occupies the 74th place on the index. Morocco gets 40 points and is ranked 81, Algeria is in 112th place with 33 points, Mauritania at 143rd place with 28 points and Libya 171 with 17 points.

“The fight against corruption in the Middle East and North Africa requires a serious and sincere political will for change and reform,” the report points out.