The fist, symbol of the ‘thawra’ (revolution), in Tripoli. During the 2019 thawra, people across the country took to the streets to protest the corrupt among the ruling class. (Credit: João Sousa/L’Orient Today)
BEIRUT — Transparency International released its annual Corruption Perceptions Index on Tuesday, according to which Lebanon has slid backwards in terms of corruption.
Here’s what we know:
• Lebanon scored 24 out of 100 (with 100 being the best), placing Lebanon 154th out of 180 countries scored in the index. Lebanon’s score is six points lower than in 2012, the benchmark year used by the index.
• The Lebanese Transparency Association, the national affiliate of Transparency International, announced Lebanon’s performance in a press conference in Furn al-Shubbak.
• In a press release Transparency International wrote: “Several laws passed in the last two years are nowhere near being enforced. Lebanon also has major deficiencies in public procurement processes and financial transparency. In June 2021, attempting to restore confidence in the government after the Beirut blast, the parliament adopted a new public procurement law. It has disturbing loopholes that allow information, conflicts of interests and company owners to remain hidden, among other gaps such as not accounting for the role of civil society organisations.”
• Transparency International’s methodology states that “The CPI aggregates data from a number of different sources that provide perceptions among businesspeople and country experts of the level of corruption in the public sector … The CPI 2021 is calculated using 13 different data sources from 12 different institutions that capture perceptions of corruption within the past two years.”