Rabat - Morocco has witnessed some improvement in public sector's corruption in 2014, says Transparency International's recent Corruption Perception Index.
Morocco was ranked 80 from 175 countries on the ranking list of the corruption index with a score of 39/100 in 2014, compared to 37/100 in 2013.
According to the Index, more than two thirds of the 175 countries scored below 50. The Corruption Perception Index measures the countries on a scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 100 (perceived to be very clean).
Denmark was ranked first with a score of 92 followed by New Zealand (91) and Finland (89).
Somalia (8), North Korea (8) and Sudan (11) made the bottom three as the most corrupt countries in the world.
In the MENA region, the UAE tops the list with a score of 70/100, followed by Qatar 69/100 and Israel 60/100. While Libya (18/ 100), Iraq (16 /100), and Sudan (11 /100) made MENA's bottom three.
The Corruption Perception Index is based on expert opinions of public sector corruption. Countries' scores can be helped by open government where the public can hold leaders to account, while a poor score is a sign of prevalent bribery, lack of punishment for corruption and public institutions that don't respond to citizens' needs.
The scores of several countries rose or fell by four points or more. The biggest falls were in Turkey (-5), Angola, China, Malawi and Rwanda (all-4). The biggest improvers were Ivory Coast, Egypt, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (+5), Afghanistan, Jordan, Mali and Swaziland (+4).
"The 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index shows that economic growth is undermined and efforts to stop corruption fade when leaders and high level officials abuse power to appropriate public funds for personal gains," said Jose Ugaz, the chair of Transparency International.
“Corrupt officials smuggle ill-gotten assets into safe havens through offshore companies with absolute impunity,” Ugaz added. “Countries at the bottom need to adopt radical anti-corruption measures in favor of their people. Countries at the top of the index should make sure they don’t export corrupt practices to underdeveloped countries.”
Transparency International called on countries at the top of the index where public sector corruption is limited to stop encouraging it elsewhere by doing more to prevent money laundering and to stop secret companies from masking corruption.