EDITORIAL: We should not be content with the current corruption perception index

The latest edition of Corruption Perception Index published by Transparency International did not come with many surprises as far as Rwanda is concerned. It continued to occupy the commendable position of third least corrupt country on the continent, at a time when other member states of the East African Community performed alarmingly very poorly. South Sudan set the trail blazing by being voted second most corrupt country in the world. Somalia took the trophy. In normal circumstances, we should be patting ourselves on the back for our stellar performance in keeping corruption in check. But is that enough? One needs only to look carefully at the figures to get the whole picture. Rwanda scored 54 on a scale of 100 and was 50th out of 176 countries. Should we be satisfied with the same score as last year’s? Shouldn’t we by now be targeting a better score than the 54 percent? One of the key findings in this year’s report was a correlation between corruption and inequality. Rwanda has been striving to spread its wealth through social protection programmes such as Ubudehe and Gir’Inka. So, what is the missing link in scoring better? Nearly every Rwandan has been brought on board in weeding out corruption and they have learnt to be whistle blowers. Where do the loose ends come from? We have a well proven track record of setting high standards and achieving them, nothing seems insurmountable. Is improving our performance such a big hurdle? Let us make it our goal, that come next year, we will not be satisfied by being ranked among the top African performers, but let us measure ourselves with the altar boys. Then we can start patting ourselves on the back.

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EDITORIAL: We should not be content with the current corruption perception index