The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) published Tuesday (31) by the nongovernmental organization Transparency International (TI) shows that the fight against corruption in the Americas has stagnated since 2017, especially in countries such as Venezuela and Nicaragua, which remain under authoritarian regimes.
No country on the continent has seen significant improvements over the past five years in TI’s rankings, which measure perceptions of public sector corruption levels on a scale of 0 to 100 (from most corrupt to “cleanest”).
In the American continent, the countries perceived as least corrupt in 2022 were Canada (74), Uruguay (74), and the United States (69), while at the other end of the scale were Venezuela (14), Haiti (17), and Nicaragua (19).
In addition, over two-thirds of the 180 countries surveyed worldwide had a “serious problem” with corruption in 2022.
The average score (43 points) remained unchanged for the eleventh consecutive year, the Berlin-based nongovernmental organization reported.
“Fragile governments fail to curb criminal networks, social conflict, and violence, and some exacerbate threats to human rights by concentrating power under the pretext of responding to insecurity,” said TI Chair Delia Ferreira Rubio.
TI Regional Advisor for Latin America and the Caribbean Luciana Torchiaro said that a common feature of all countries in the region is that there are very few sanctions against those responsible for corruption.
“The judicial system is very slow and in many countries not very independent. All of this contributes to the overall stagnation we are currently experiencing,” she said.
Three countries have fallen significantly on the scale over the past five years: Honduras (23), Haiti (17), and Nicaragua (19), which in 2022 reached its lowest level since the CPI was introduced in 1995, as well as Cuba (45) and Guatemala (24).
The Central American country fell one point in 2022, a year in which the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Impunity released a public official accused of money laundering.
Guatemala is experiencing a decline in the fight against corruption that is “almost unprecedented in the region,” said Torchiaro, who spoke of an “extremely worrying regression.”
“We are witnessing the total capture of the civil service, the institutions of justice, by the elites that govern the country and even have ties with organized crime,” she warned, recalling that several Guatemalan prosecutors are in exile and activists and journalists are imprisoned.
The case of Nicaragua is also “extreme” since the great corruption concentrated in the executive branch contributes to a “massive violation of rights,” and anyone who dares to contradict the government puts himself in danger of death, the expert noted.
On the other hand, in its press release, the organization particularly emphasized the “unstable” situation in Brazil (38 points, as in 2021) caused by a combination of “corruption, authoritarianism, and economic downturn.”
Former President Jair Messias Bolsonaro resorted to “corrupt maneuvers” to favor political allies and dismantled anti-corruption structures, TI said, recalling that supporters of the far-right leader tried to disrupt the inauguration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva this month.
The new government’s inauguration offers the opportunity to reverse this situation and advance the fight against corruption, said Torchiaro, who believes that a move in this direction could have “positive repercussions” for the entire subcontinent.
In its communiqué, TI also referred to the situation in Peru, where unrest following the overthrow of former President Pedro Castillo, who attempted to dissolve parliament, adds to years of political instability in the country, which maintains its 2021 score of 36.
Finally, TI pointed to the expansion of drug trafficking in the Caribbean and high crime rates in Jamaica (44) and Trinidad and Tobago (42), where more than half of the population considered the police corrupt in 2019.