Korea is making steady strides toward stamping out corruption across government agencies and institutions, but public perception on the matter has been on a slow decline.
In its most recent annual review, Transparency International dropped Korea one notch in its global rankings for relative degree of perceived corruption.
Korea had previously ranked 39th on the Corruption Perceptions Index back in 2010 but has since fallen seven places to 46th.
The head of Transparency International Korea, Kim Geo-sung, says the consecutive fall is due in part to a series of high-profile corruption scandals over the last few years.
Kim cited the corruption case of Korea’s state-run operator of nuclear power plants that led to the shutdown of several reactors and pushing the country into an energy crisis this past summer.
This year Korea scored 55 out of 100 on the Corruption Perceptions Index, which measures the perceived level of corruption in the administrative and public sectors.
The score takes into account 13 opinion surveys by global experts and businesspeople.
Korea also came in 27th when compared to the 34 member nations of the OECD, unchanged on-year.
When comparing all 177 countries in the report, the global watchdog said Denmark and New Zealand were the world’s least corruption nations.
In order to improve its ranking, experts recommend that Korea establish an independent anti-corruption organization and strengthen oversight of high-ranking officials.
Paul Yi, Arirang News
Reporter : paulyi@arirang.co.kr
More at: http://www.arirang.co.kr/News/News_View.asp?nseq=154366