We have fallen to 115!

Transparency International has just released its 2023 Corruption Perception Index (CPI). We are still doing badly. We are far from being clean. We have scored 34 and ranked 115. But before I delve into how bad we have been, it is important to briefly talk about what the CPI is all about and who Transparency International are.

Transparency International is a global movement working in over 100 countries to end the injustice of corruption. They use advocacy, campaigning and research to expose systems and networks that enable corruption to thrive. The CPI, a global corruption ranking, measures how corrupt each country’s public sector is perceived to be. It ranks 180 countries and territories on a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). The scores reflect the views of experts, surveys or business people, not the general public. Data used to calculate CPI comes from 13 different external sources such as the World Bank and World Economic Forum. 

In 2023, Malawi scored 34 and was ranked 115. While we maintained our 2022 score, we dropped in the rank. We were ranked 110 in 2022. In any case, we were below the global average and just a point above the Sub-Saharan Africa average (34), a region where 90 percent of the countries scored below 50. The Sub-Saharan Africa region is where Equatorial Guinea (CPI Score:17), South Sudan (CPI Score:13) and Somalia (CPI Score: 11) are located. The star performer was Seychelles with a CPI Score of 71. As a country we were closer to the bottom than the top.

Clearly, we are far from being clean, if cleanliness is a score of 100. If things were improving both globally and regionally it would be tempting to think that we are not as bad. Unfortunately, both the global and regional pictures are not promising. Transparency International says most African countries experienced stagnation, thereby, maintaining the region’s consistently poor performance. The story for Sub-Saharan Africa is that democracy and the rule of law remain under pressure. Does the pressure on democracy and rule of law apply for Malawi? I very much doubt. Our challenges could be of a different sort.

If I was a politician, I would be quick to spin TI’s CPI that we have maintained the previous round’s score or that this is not based on the general population or that these are just perceptions. After all, the so-called experts or business people are not coming out in the open, but hiding behind Transparency International. Of course, I am not a politician and I have observed that as a country, we are not clean and there appears no hope in sight. Yet, over the years, the investments in systems, policies and legal instruments have been massive.

Are our investments in the fight against corruption giving us value for money? The answer to this question is, for all of us, to find. We can all privately or at appropriate fora, attempt to answer it.  All I can say is that our performance on the CPI clearly screams that we are doing very badly. In 2012 and 2013 we maintained a score of 37 which dropped to 33 and 31 in 2013 and 2014, respectively. For six years (2015 to 2020), we either scored 30 (once) or 31 (4 times) or 32 (once). For the past 10 years we have never beaten the 2013 score, let alone matching it.

While we have the impression that we enjoy democracy and the rule of law, how do we explain our poor show on the CPI?  As things stand, we are far from being clean and that is worrisome.