Little change to Jamaica’s corruption perception, report reveals
Gavin Riley / Our Today
administrator
Gaining five places, Jamaica has improved its ranking in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI), but still has one of the worst records in the Caribbean.
Transparency International, which released the 2020 CPI report at midnight on Thursday (January 27), gave Jamaica 44 out of 100 points—leaving the island ranked 69th among 180 countries.
It’s a negligible change to Jamaica’s score, as the island previously scored 43 in the 2019 CPI, with a global ranking of 79th that same year.
In the Caribbean, the island has the fifth-worst CPI, only ‘outperformed’ by Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname and Haiti. Fellow CARICOM member states Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis and Belize were not ranked in the 2020 report.
Commenting briefly in its Americas report, Transparency International singled out Jamaica, Trinidad and the Dominican Republic for “little improvement” in the respective corruption perception indices.
“Jamaica (44), Trinidad and Tobago (40), and the Dominican Republic (28) all showed little improvement on the CPI. In 2020, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago returned two ruling parties to power, but the election of a new government in the Dominican Republic raised hopes for the fight against corruption,” the corruption watchdog noted.
Barbados enjoyed a return to the top rank for at least nine of the last 12 years, with a CPI score of 64, leaving the island ranked at 29th in the world.
Worldwide, New Zealand and Denmark resume an unblemished domination of global CPI rankings, both tying for the top spot with a score of 88. It is the ninth consecutive year both countries have shared the distinction of ‘least corrupt’, a tradition that has been documented as far back as 2012.
A full breakdown of the Caribbean corruption perception index rankings are as follows:
| Country | CPI score (Rank* out of 180) |
| Barbados | 64 (29th) |
| The Bahamas | 63 (joint 30th with Qatar) |
| St Vincent and the Grenadines | 59 (40th) |
| St Lucia | 56 (joint 45th with Poland and Georgia) |
| Dominica | 55 (48th) |
| Grenada | 53 (joint 52nd with Italy, Saudi Arabia and Mauritius) |
| Cuba | 47 (joint 63rd with Sao Tome and Principe, Belarus and Croatia) |
| Jamaica | 44 (joint 69th with Hungary, Romania, South Africa, Tunisia and Bulgaria) |
| Guyana | 41 (joint 83rd with Benin and Lesotho) |
| Trinidad and Tobago | 40 (joint 86th with India, Morocco, Burkina Faso, Turkey and Timor-Leste |
| Suriname | 38 (joint 94th with Kazakhstan, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Peru, Brazil and Ethiopia) |
| Dominican Republic | 28 (joint 137th with Guinea, Myanmar, Liberia and Paraguay) |
| Haiti | 18 (joint 170th with Democratic Republic of Congo and North Korea) |
| *Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis, Belize | *not ranked in 2020 CPI |
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