Georgia has slightly improved its standing in Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI), but, according to the anti-corruption watchdog, the change is not significant and indicates that the corruption perception level has remained stable in Georgia over the past few years.
 
CPI ranks countries based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be and it scores countries on a scale from 0 – perceived to be highly corrupt, to 100 – perceived to be very clean.    

In the new CPI, released by the Berlin-based Transparency International on December 3, Georgia is ranked on 50th place among 175 countries survived.

Georgia’s score is 52 – same as in 2012 and slightly better than in 2013, when the country’s score was 49.

“Since, according to the CPI methodology, only an increase or a decrease of the CPI score by 4 points or more indicates a significant change in the perceived level of corruption in a country, these results show that the corruption perception level has remained stable in Georgia over the last three years and there has been no significant progress or backslide during this period of time,” TI Georgia, Tbilisi-based member of Transparency International’s network, said.

In 2014 CPI ranking, with the score of 52, Georgia shares the 50th place with Malaysia and Samoa, just behind Mauritius, Costa Rica and Hungary, and ahead of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Other EU-member countries, which rank behind Georgia in terms of perceived level of corruption, are Croatia, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy and Romania.

Noting that Georgia has taken a number of steps toward improving its anti-corruption policies in recent years, Transparency International Georgia also said that there are important issues that need to be addressed in order “to achieve further progress and establish an effective system for the prevention of corruption.”

Among those issues, TI Georgia listed the need for establishment of an independent anti-corruption body with necessary powers and resources for the prevention of corruption-related crimes committed by high-ranking officials; establishment of a mechanism for the verification of the content of public officials’ asset declarations; establishment of an effective and transparent system for recruitment and dismissal in the civil service that will exclude the possibility of politically motivated decisions and nepotism; establishment of an independent investigatory mechanism for the investigation of crimes committed by law enforcement officers; safeguarding of institutional independence of the supervisory and regulatory institutions, and reduction of the excessively big share of simplified procurement by state institutions.