CBC :The growing abyss that is world corruption

The growing abyss that is world corruption By Brian Stewart
(note: this report is relevant for the FairVote Canada campaign. One of the comments in the report noted "Seven of the top ten have socal democratic governments and most have proportional representation and a lot of them have coalition governments. Makes for more democracy and thus less corruption. And I suspect most of the top ten have effective journalism going on" mb)

Accountability and transparency of The top 20 least-corrupt nations

1. Denmark
2. New Zealand
3. Singapore
4. Finland
5. Sweden
6. Canada
7. Netherlands
8. Australia
9. Switzerland
10. Norway
11. Iceland
12. Luxembourg
13. Hong Kong
14. Ireland
15. Austria
16. Germany
17. Barbados
18. Japan
19. Qatar
20. United Kingdom

There's one problem area in the world today that must be stated as bluntly as possible and faced as honestly as we can — that's the collapse of trust in governments around the globe because of an almost unprecedented rise in corruption. Every year, according to those who track these things, the world falls further into widespread corruption to the point where "at no time has there been less trust in elected representatives," the International Anti-Corruption Conference declared last month.

We all know severe corruption exists in large parts of the world. But most of us had hoped that the pressure for transparency and reform by groups like the UN and the World Bank would start getting a grip on this plague.

Economic summits, like the G20 in Toronto last summer, always vow to attack the problem with vigour. But that simply isn't happening effectively enough. We are not advancing against world corruption. According to the numbers, in fact, we're in a dismal retreat.

As the respected group Transparency International reported recently, of 178 countries and territories surveyed, nearly three quarters scored below five on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (very clean). This means that even Canada along with other relatively clean and transparent countries cannot be immune from the consequences.

Anti-corruption experts are unanimous in warning that the existing state of severe corruption in dozens of nation states means we will all face a future of more instability, violence, poverty and massive environmental failure.
Bribery on the rise "Most worrying is the fact that bribes to the police have almost doubled since 2006, and more people report paying bribes to the judiciary than did so five years ago," the report said.

Something very ominous is clearly happening here as even the least corrupt areas appear to show less faith in the honesty of government and its institutions... (more)