The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Transparency International’s Bahamas representative yesterday admitted that this nation was ranked too highly in its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), describing the issue as “the foundation for all” the country’s current problems.

Lemarque Campbell, of Citizens for a Better Bahamas (CBB), told Tribune Business that the global corruption watchdog’s assessment of the Bahamas was based on limited data and did not account for the views of persons ‘on the ground’.

Transparency International’s 2016 Index, released yesterday, ranked the Bahamas as the least corrupt country in the Caribbean, placing it at 24th out of 1276 nations.

This nation was also rated as the fourth least corrupt in the Americas, behind Canada in ninth spot, the US in 18th, and Uruguay in 21st position. By comparison with the rest of the Caribbean, Barbados was 31st and Jamaica in 83rd spot.

The Bahamas’ rating is likely to be seized upon by the Government as one indicator showing that this nation is moving in the right direction, at least in comparison with other rankings such as the World Bank’s ‘ease of doing business’ report.

However, the Bahamas’ 24th spot ranking likely fails to match the experiences of many investors and business owners, along with ordinary Bahamians. Members of an ‘Entrepreneur Panel’, speaking at a Rotaract meeting last week, complained about payments being sought by government officials to expedite permit applications.

Mr Campbell yesterday told Tribune Business he had himself been critical of both the Bahamas’ CPI ranking and how the Government has “used it” in the past, pointing to Prime Minister Perry Christie’s touting of it at a Cayman Islands conference several years ago..

As if confirming Mr Campbell’s position, this newspaper received an e-mail from a well-known Bahamian businessman yesterday, seizing on the Bahamas’ high ranking.

“Transparency International is generally regarded as the ‘gold standard’ by which transparency in governance around the world is measured,” the businessman wrote.

“The latest report has recently been released and ranks the Bahamas as the least corrupt country in the Caribbean, surpassing Barbados which had previously held that standard... This is how the world sees the country.”

Mr Campbell, though, explained that the Bahamas’ CPI ranking was based on “limited data” sources.

Just three - Political Risk Services’ Country Risk Guide; Global Insight’s Country Risk Findings; and the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index - had been used to determine the Bahamas’ ranking, whereas the CPI drew upon as many as 10 sources for other nations.

He added that the Index also drew heavily on “the perceptions from experts and business people”, as opposed to citizens and residents of the Bahamas, who were ‘on the ground’ and experienced the brunt of governance flaws.

“I myself have been critical of the CPI and the way the Government has used it,” Mr Campbell told Tribune Business. “I’ve been in contact with the Transparency International secretariat in Berlin.

“I think that when you look at the general perception of the average citizen, they have a different perspective compared to these limited data sources.

“Corruption is a very elusive form of human behaviour that could be very difficult to quantify. The best way to measure corruption in the country is by the interaction that the average citizen and resident faces with the public sector.”

Mr Campbell said Citizens for a Better Bahamas was now in discussions with Transparency International to obtain just this information, via the latter’s Global Corruption Barometer survey - which interviews residents and businessmen in the particular country under scrutiny.

“I think what we really need to look at is getting a national survey done, incorporating the views of citizens and residents,” he said. “That would give you a broader perception of corruption and transparency than relying on the CPI.

“The CPI is very limited. Don’t get me wrong: Transparency International does amazing work, great work in terms of promoting transparency and accountability, but there’s a downfall in relying on the CPI.”

Mr Campbell added that Global Corruption Barometer surveys were already underway in Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago, and Citizens for a Better Bahamas was pushing for this to be extended to this nation, so that a regional report could be produced.

“Only Bahamians and residents of the Bahamas can truly give an accurate perception of corruption in this country,” he argued. “We have current politicians who have admitted to not filing their financial details as mandated by the Public Disclosures Act.

“We have government entities not conducting and releasing information on annual audits; we have politicians who blatantly admit that their supporters should be the ones to obtain government contracts; we have money missing from government agencies without anyone held accountable; we still don’t have a strong Freedom of Information Act; we still have dubious actors heavily financing political parties without any restriction on the same; and the list goes on.

“These examples are not just a perception of corruption in the Bahamas; this is the reality that affects every Bahamian.”

Mr Campbell said the absence of such anti-corruption mechanisms in the Bahamas made it “a bit difficult to even get a clear perception” of how widespread the problem was.

He told Tribune Business that good governance, or the lack thereof, which embraces the topics of corruption, accountability and transparency, was at the root of the Bahamas’ present difficulties.

“Right now we can see that it’s affecting our development or lack thereof,” Mr Campbell said. “With the recent credit rating downgrade, it stands out in all of this. I think corruption is the foundation for all of this. Unless we tackle corruption, we can’t tackle many of the issues the Bahamas is facing.”