Index’s presentation./ Photo: @TSpain
Eduardo González. 26/01/2017
The non-governmental organization Transparency International (TI) presented, yesterday in Madrid, its Corruption Perception Index 2016, in which Spain has the same rating as last year but with a “historic corruption record” when compared to the rest of countries being analysed.
Spain has 58 points on a scale from zero (very high levels of corruption perception) to one hundred (very low levels of corruption perception). This rating is the same it obtained in 2015, but our country falls five positions when compared to the same year, until holding the 41st position among a total of 176 countries.
This position has been the worst rating for Spain since the index started being published, according to the president of Transparency International-Spain, Jesús Lizcano, during the index’s presentation at a press conference.
“When compared to the countries of the European Union, we are below the average, 17th among 28, a significantly improvable position among the countries to which we are being compared”, he continued. “We are joining a group of countries that includes Georgia or the Czech Republic, which have recently been closer to systemic corruption”, he warned.
Spain gets a bare pass in the Corruption Perception Index 2016
These countries as a whole “fail” regarding corruption perception, with an average rating of 43 points and 122 countries (of a total of 176) having less than 50 points. The list is led by Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland, being Yemen, Syria, North Korea, South Sudan and Somalia at the bottom.
One of the factors that, according to Transparency, must be improved in order to solve the problem of corruption in Spain is that of contracts and biddings by public administrations.
“As a consequence of the crisis, contracts have replaced the real estate sector as the big corrupted field”, affirmed Manuel Villoria, professor of administration and political science in the Rey Juan Carlos University of Madrid. This issue is particularly serious regarding “low cost contracts, which usually have very opaque subsequent bonus”, he added.
In relation to this matter, Jesús Sánchez Lambás, member of the Executive Board of Transparency International, described as “alarming” the fact that the Government has “outsourced something that should be done by the administration, such as the issue of visas”, to the Indian company BLS through “a bad tender that should have required a higher level of experience”.
“Consulates affect the image of the country and a bad management in the issue of visas can have negative consequences for the security and the image of the country”, he warned.
