Transparency International, one of the leading organizations fighting against the corruption, has released the annual Corruption Perception Index ("Index 2014") and shared the outcome of its research with the public.
The Corruption Perception Index 2014 lists out the corruption results of 175 countries, and represents the findings of 12 different surveys made by 11 different international institutions. The Index is based on experts' and business people's opinions on public sector corruption. The scale of the Index is from 100 to 0, where 100 points is perceived to be very clean and 0 point perceived to be highly corrupt.
And 92 points go to...
According to the results of the Index, among 175 countries Denmark took the first place in the ranking by having 92 points in the 2014 Index, meaning that Denmark has the minimum corruption rate. New Zealand and Finland, by having 91 and 89 points respectively are the second and the third in the row after Denmark with the minimum corruption rate. Last countries in the corruption rate list with 8 points are North Korea and Somalia.
Bad news for Turkey
Turkey's status is not great either, having its score decreased by 5 points this year. Turkey was the 53rd country in the last year's Index, but now, it's the 64th country in 2014 Index. With this sharp fall in its score, Turkey's improvements made during the last 6 years zeroed down. According to the results of the indexes that have been released since 1995, it is unfortunate that Turkey could not make a positive move within the last 20 years.
The Index 2014 stated the reason of such down come of Turkey not only as the corruption but also the restriction on freedom of speech, freedom of the press/media, a strict censorship of the internet in the country. As a result, Transparency International called Turkey to gain a "transparency culture", since it is an inseparable part of a democratic and accountable society.
Good News: Brand new legislation package is in the pipeline
Despite the worries about Turkey on corruption, there seems to be a serious attempt by the government to eliminate the concerns, especially given the new legislation in the pipeline on the transparency of the companies and public entities. Turkish government representatives recently declared in the press meetings that a new legislation package involving the transparency requirements is almost ready to be enacted. The legislation package will be finalized by a cabinet decree, before it is discussed at the relevant commission of the parliament for compliance purposes. The legislation package on transparency further includes rules and regulations on transparency requirements in terms of the zoning implementations in order to provide for a more competitive working platform in the zoning implementations area and to secure equal access opportunities for entering into the construction sector. According to the statements of the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, the foregoing legislative package is expected to be published by the end of the year 2014, once the rules of transparency for the zoning implementations have been finalized.
Future expectations
It is a fact that, the most effective solution to cease the corruption in a country is to make new legal arrangements which will work effectively. Turkey is already taking certain measures to prevent corruption and obviously will take the outcome of this year's Index seriously.
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