Central America/Panama corruption index worsening

A WORLD corruption index released on Tuesday, December 3,  highlights a continuing decline in Central America, including Panama.

Corruption in the public sector remains " one of the greatest global challenges ," according to the NGO , which considers the most problematic areas "political parties , the police and judicial systems ."

Alejandro Salas. the Americas director of The 2013 edition of the Perceptions Index Corruption ( CPI) which offers a regional ranking of corruption around the told Efe: " What jumps out at first sight is that Central America falls as a block. The explanation is that organized crime groups need corruption to smuggle drugs. arms and people,".
In his view, these organizations and their conflicts causes a "systematic attrition" in the region containing the countries with the biggest falls in Panama, Guatemala, The Dominican Republic and Honduras.
On a scale from 0 ( highly corrupt ) to 100 ( very clear), the transparency table is headed by Uruguay , with (73 ), Chile ( 71 ) Puerto Rico ( 62) and Costa Rica ( 53 ), followed by Cuba ( 46 ), Brazil ( 42) and El Salvador ( 38).
In the caboose , perceived as the most corrupt in the region, are Venezuela ( 20 points), Paraguay (24 ) , Honduras (26 ) , Nicaragua (28) and Guatemala ( 29) .
Between them , in order of decreasing transparency , appear in the annual ranking of Peru ( 38 points) , Colombia ( 36) Ecuador (36 ) , Panama (35 ) , Argentina ( 34) Bolivia (34 ) , Mexico ( 34) and Dominican Republic ( 29).
Ecuador , despite its low score , is improving with a four points rise – thanks largely to the " signal" sent by the national anti-corruption plan and other measures such as wage increases to the police, and "expectations" that this has generated .
The manager for Latin America warns against the risk of depending on the " heavy hand" of a ruler – and attacks on the media.
With respect to Brazil and Mexico , the two economic powers in the region , Salas branded as bad news their " stagnation " in the CPI , although "In Brazil there is a lot of movement and I think it will be an improvement in the index in the coming years," said Salas.
Internationally, Somalia , North Korea and Afghanistan , with just eight points, are perceived as the most corrupt countries in the World, and Denmark and New Zealand are the most transparent with 91 integers.
The CPI global reference in the analysis of corruption , says the results of this report " paint a worrying scenario " and notes that " more than two thirds of the 177 countries "studied are suspended in transparency.”
Among the great powers, the United States ranks 19th place with 73 points , 80 in China (40 points) , Japan 18 (74 ) , Germany 12 ( 78), UK 14 (76 ) , Russia in the 127 (28 ), Brazil in 72 ( 42 ) and India 94 ( 36).
The organization calls on the international community to take coordinated action against economic crime , particularly money laundering Index.
The CPI is produced each year since 1995 from different studies and surveys on perceived levels of corruption in the public sector in different countries.