The Maldives has again ranked 85th in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2022 with a score of 40.
The CPI, released by Transparency International, annually scores and ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived level of public sector corruption, drawing on surveys and expert assessments. The index uses a scale of zero to 100, where zero is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.
The CPI revealed that the Maldives' score from 2021 remains unchanged in 2022 and that it still sits in 85th place out of 184, the same as last year.
In a statement today, Transparency Maldives said that the data reflects the stagnation in implementing and enforcing the laws to tackle corruption.
It said that as is true for the past years, Maldives has seen weak investigation, prosecution, enforcement, and implementation of laws resulting in an increased lack of accountability of political and public officials.
Transparency Maldives said that additionally, CPI scores in the middle of the index indicate more complex challenges such as grand corruption which includes the abuse of high-level power that benefits the few at the expense of the many.
It further said that as the country is preparing for a presidential election this year, it remained concerned by the highly politicized efforts to address corruption that result in lowering public trust in accountability mechanisms and the judicial process.
Transparency Maldives said that efforts to address corruption must be timely, efficient and unbiased and reiterated its calls to the government to end the culture of impunity for the corrupt, ensure allegations of corruption are investigated and addressed in order to ensure political figures accused of corruption is held to account and not rewarded with more power and privilege
