While the ANC was busy pointing fingers at Thuli Madonsela for leaking the Nkandla report, South Africa slipped to its lowest-ever spot on the global corruption charts.

According to the Corruption Perception Index, there are a total of nine African countries that now appear to be less corrupt than our own. Botswana leads the continent, ranking as the 30th-least corrupt country.

Out of 177 countries, South Africa now places 72nd. That puts us in the same sort of league as Kuwait, Romania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria and Senegal.

The CPI uses a set of surveys and available data from the World Bank among others, to gauge how the public sector is perceived.

As expected, the likes of Somalia, North Korea and and Afghanistan rounded out the bottom-end of the list, while countries like Denmark and New Zealand took home top marks.

Corruption Watch executive director David Lewis:

The Gupta wedding saga and ongoing fiasco surrounding the president’s private Nkandla residence are indicators in the past year of impunity in operation. We are of the view that perceptions of corruption will not change until political and business leaders are held accountable for their conduct.

Click here to view the CPI’s interactive corruption map.

[Source : Times Live]