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The levels of corruption in this country all but flourished under former president Jacob Zuma, with his name and the surname of his friends, the Guptas, synonymous with double-dealings.

Institutions have been hallowed out, crooks and liars have been appointed to senior jobs, and the watchdogs who are supposed to stop corruption have been muzzled.

It has become so rife that state-owned firms, such as Eskom and South African Airways, have been bled so dry that their debts threaten the stability of the South African economy.

Still, somehow, the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released by Transparency International reveals South Africa as merely average on an international scale of corruption, notes The Citizen.

In fact – even with the Zondo report in the works and all – SA went down a notch from last year. Now the Corruption Perceptions Index report for the year shows South Africa with a CPI score of 43 and not 2021’s 44:

The index ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople. It relies on 13 independent data sources and uses a scale of zero to 100, where zero is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.

We should not be proud that South Africa’s score is around 11 index points better than that of other sub-Saharan regions:

The Seychelles, with a score of 70, was the top-performing country in sub-Saharan Africa. Somalia, with a CPI of 12, was the worst-performing country in the region and of all the countries included in the index.

Only countries with strong institutions and well-functioning democracies get to the top of the index, which mostly includes spots in Western Europe and the European Union:

Denmark headed the ranking in the 2022 CPI, with a score of 90, followed closely by Finland and New Zealand with 87. Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland and Luxembourg completed the top 10.

It makes sense then that countries with major conflict, where even basic personal and political freedoms are highly restricted, sit at the very bottom of the ranking:

Somalia, Syria and South Sudan are at the bottom of the 2022 index, with Venezuela, Yemen, Libya, North Korea, Haiti, Equatorial Guinea and Burundi making up the rest of the bottom 10.

Progress has stagnated in most countries for more than a decade, according to Transparency International, noting that corruption is not only a consequence but also a cause of conflict.

We may be average, but we are quite familiar with all the grievances particular to corruption and how it can erupt into conflict.

The wave of civil unrest, complete with rioting and looting, that hit in July 2021 in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng is just one example.

The on-off imprisonment situation of Zuma is another.

Transparency International notes that 130 countries have seen significant social protests since 2017 – mostly occurring in countries with CPI scores below 50.

Being average in this sense is rather dangerous, then.

[source:citizen]