Hungary scored 5.1 points on Transparency International’s 1- to 10-point Corruption Perceptions Index for 2009, TI Hungary managing director Noemi Alexa said on Tuesday.
Hungary’s score put it at 46th place in the global ranking, up one position from a year earlier. Hungary ranked 21st among countries in Europe.
The lack of transparency of Hungary’s political party and campaign financing, as well as the overly complicated public procurement system, continue to provide a hotbed for corruption in the country, said Ms Alexa. The fact that involved parties are only very rarely held responsible in cases of corruption reinforces the presumption that corrupt behaviour is not risky in Hungary, she added.
TI director for Europe and Central Asia Miklos Marschall told MTI Hungary should not be satisfied with its place on the list. “Our performance is in no way praiseworthy,” said the Hungarian who has been a director with TI since 1999.
In addition to the areas of campaign financing and public procurements, Mr Marschall said deficiencies in the tax system and the system of local government created opportunities for corruption.
The highest-scoring country on the list, that is, the one with the lowest level of corruption, was New Zealand with a score of 9.4.
I have always found this subject interesting, as I have had occasion to make my own personal observations over the years. Here is Transparency Intl’s ranking and where we stand, along with percentile out of a 180 nations surveyed:
1 New Zealand 99%
2 Denmark 99%
3 Singapore 98%
3 Sweden 98%
5 Switzerland 97%
6 Finland 97%
6 Netherlands 97%
8 Australia 96%
8 Canada 96%
8 Iceland 96%
11 Norway 94%
12 Hong Kong 93%
12 Luxembourg 93%
14 Germany 92%
14 Ireland 92%
16 Austria 91%
17 Japan 91%
17 United Kingdom 91%
19 United States 89%
20 Barbados 89%
21 Belgium 88%
22 Qatar 88%
22 Saint Lucia 88%
24 France 87%
25 Chile 86%
25 Uruguay 86%
27 Cyprus 85%
27 Estonia 85%
27 Slovenia 85%
30 U.A.R. 83%
31 St Vincent and the Grenadines 83%
32 Israel 82%
32 Spain 82%
34 Dominica 81%
35 Portugal 81%
35 Puerto Rico 81%
37 Botswana 79%
37 Taiwan 79%
39 Brunei 78%
39 Oman 78%
39 Korea (South) 78%
42 Mauritius 77%
43 Costa Rica 76%
43 Macau 76%
45 Malta 75%
46 Bahrain 74%
46 Cape Verde 74%
46 Hungary 74%
The TI website is heavily loaded with tables, statistics and questionaires, for those that are truly curious as to how these results were obtained.
I think it interesting to show how our regional, ex-communist nation neighbors stand on this index:
46 Hungary 74%
49 Poland 73%
52 Czech Republic 71%
52 Lithuania 71%
56 Latvia 69%
56 Slovakia 69%
66 Croatia 63%
71 Bulgaria 61%
71 Macedonia 61%
71 Romania 61%
83 Serbia 54%
89 Moldova 51%
99 Bosnia 45%
139 Belarus 23%
146 Russia 19%
146 Ukraine 19%
180 Somalia 0% (Just to show who’s on the bottom of the heap)
Out of 19 ex-commie Euro nations, we rank in third place, with “only” Estonia and Slovenia ahead of us, tied for 27th place out of 180. We’re not “clean”, but there’s a difference between just needing a shower vs. a delousing!
The survey has it’s share of surprises, and is even amusing in some ways. Five Latin nations (long associated with corruption), Chile, Uruguay, Spain, Costa Rica and Portugal beat us. Botswana outdoes us as well (my face is red with embarassment.), as does Macao, once considered the cesspool of the Orient.
There is a close, but not exact correlation between national wealth, GDP per capita and ranking. The top 19 nations are traditionally considered “first world” developed economies. (The US no. 19) Some wealthier nations are below us, like Italy(63), Kuwait(66), China (79) and India (84). Corruption it seems, does not necessarily kill economic growth, but sure doesn’t help it either.
Another interesting question is what is it with the Estonians and Slovenes that puts them so far ahead of their neighbors?!
My next interest on this subject was how our relative ranking has changed over time. Transparency Intl has been keeping this survey since 2001-2009. It’s called the “Corruption Perception Index”(CPI); they have other indexes as well. They appear to be an organization that takes itself very seriously, and their website is hard to use and figure out if you don’t know what you are looking for or where it is. Sometimes the nation rankings are put inder “press release”.
One thing that has stayed consistent since 2001 is that Estonia and Slovenia rank well above us, in the 20′s. The Czech Republic dances around us, usually below, but above in the years 2007 and 2008, only to sink below us again in 2009. The number of nations surveyed has also increased, from 91 in 2001, to 108 in 2009.
Other oddities: Tunisia was less corrupt than us in 2003, coming in at 39th place as opposed to our 40th. Italy, which gave us Machiavelli and the Mob, is usually more corrupt than we are (Hooray for that! Hajrá Magyar! But then they’ve had centuries of practice!), but in the years 2002 and 2003, underwent some unexplained fit of self improvement and nudged ahead of us by a few notches. They have since descended well below us on the scale, so I can sleep soundly, knowing that we are less corrupt than the Italians. All is not lost!
(Cont)
Here is our performance over time, since 2001 giving our ranking out of the total number, followed by the comparative ranking of the Czech Republic, our only real competition among the ex-commie neighbors, who all consistently rank below us, except for Slovenia and Estonia. (I made a typo in the last report, the number of nations surveyed in 2009 was 180, not 108. Sorry)
YEAR–HUN/TOTAL——-CZECH
2001–31/91———–47
2002–33/102———-52
2003–40/133———-54
2004–42/145———-51
2005–40/158———-47
2006–41/163———-46
2007–39/179———-41
2008–47/180———-45
2009–46/180———-52
Looking at the above numbers, one can’t help notice that we have dropped and significantly eroded over time; we dropped by 11 places from 2001 to 2004 alone. This has caused me to review the election results since 1998 to see if we can’t get a clue for which Prime minister and Parliamentary changes these trends correlate to.
Our high point in the survey, 2001,corresponds to the Orbán era. Orbán was FIDESZ, and his party got the majority of seats in 1998, 148 to MSZP’s 134.
In 2002, Péter Medgyessy (MSZP) won, and FIDESZ had a slight majority in parliament, 188 to MSZP’s 178. In 2006 Ferenc Gyurcsány(MSZP) won.
Based purely upon the above information alone, we achieve the least corruption by having FIDESZ in charge in both parliament and the PM office. Having an MSZP man as PM took our ranking down. But FIDESZ bears some blame, as they had a majority in Parliament while we were sliding. Still, the results tell me that if you want to see the possibility of less corruption, MSZP would not be the horse to bet on.
Our politics is tough indeed, as no party commands a clear, over 50% majority in national elections. No party gets the much desired “mandate” from the voters, and both FIDESZ and MSZP both command about the same percentage of parliamentary support. It’s a formula for compromise and/or stagnation. What else is new?
It is wrong to judge the Hungo position in ’01 to ’09 without taking into account how many of the 79 added countries in that period are above us. Only if you remove them countries from the ’09 list would you see if Hungo is up or down.
Hello David,
Looking over the lists from year to year, pretty much showed the same countries in the top 40, with a few slipping up and down, in and out. Once you enter the top 30 and especially the top 20, it’s almost always the same names, only their order changes somewhat. The consistency “hardens” as you go up into the top of the list, because it is difficult for a nation not in that league, to get there. The ones that already reside there, have an easy time staying in that league.
TI seems to have started with the most “develooped” countries first, and added lesser developed nations later.
The nations in the top 20 have several things in common: a long experience of market economy, democracy, corporate capitalism, industrialisation, international trade, combined with high education levels. No former communist nation has made it into the top 20, nor any African or Latin American country. In Asia, only Japan is in that class.
Feel free to review the TI website and look at their information in greter detail Dave; I’m done cruching numbers for today!
So for Hungary there is hope…
Germany is best among the “big” members of the EU, in front of the UK, France and so on. That at least is some consolation for me, but not much…
how and why is singapore 3rd on the global corruption index?? singapore is by no way a fully democractic country, i am sure hungary is more democractic than singapore in a way. Singapore have laws that allow corporal punishment i.e. caning. The singaporean police have the right to detain anyone whom they believe is a danger to the peace and public of singapore for 5 years.
singapore – what does canning and police presence have to do with transparency and corruption? Nor is this an index measuring levels of democracy, though there are strong correlations between the two, in which I think singapore might be an outlier. I wish they had canning here for graffiti, it would certainly make for a more beautiful city.
Dear Singapore,
A list such as this raises more questions than it answers! The more you study it, the more you notice certain anomolies that forces one to question the how and why of certain countries and cultures.
In the case of Singapore, here is what I am thinking. Four contenders rank above Hungary that are influenced by Chinese, Confucianist culture and merchantile tradition: Singapore (3), Hong Kong (12), Taiwan(37) and Macao(43). Your question as to why Singapore ranks so high is part of a larger puzzle. I think the answer is that where you have had Chinese, with their confucianist traditions (which emphasize the responsibility of the individual to their elders, family and society), along with a govt that allows them free reign to indulge their natural bent towards commerce, you produce an environment that gets high grades on the corruption index.
This is borne out by the fact that two Chinese powerhouse mercantile city states, Singapore and Hong Kong rank very high. (In Singapore, although you have a varied population, the business is overwhelmingly Chinse owned and dominated) Taiwan ranks a lot lower, and Macao even lower still. I attribute that to the fact that Taiwan was a one party dictatorship under the Nationalist Party for many decades, which seems to have affected the outcome. Macao was for hundreds of years a colony of Portugal, a Latin society itself long affected by corruption and underdevelopment.
(cont)
My theory above is supported by the fact that mainland China, which has been a one party state since 1949, and which for 3 decades under Mao and his successor wife disrupted capitalism and confucianism, ranks far below even Hungary on this index(#79).
The implications as regards societal corruption are clear. Leave the Chinese alone; don’t mess with confucianist culture, and don’t impose dictatorship on them, especially of the Marxist Leninist variety. (One can’t help but wonder to what extent the moral fabric of Hungarian society was affected by almost 50 years of Sovietisation.)
I’ve spent some time in Hong Kong and Taiwan, including other places in Asia. I believe that Confucius imparted a real and lasting wisdom to his people. He emphasised responsibility and moral behaviour towards others. To him, society and the state were not one and the same thing, whereas they were to Lenin and his followers. He felt that if the ruler was “not in harmony with heaven”, society would rot from the top down, and that such a ruler, his successors and regime were doomed.
(cont)
Chinese culture also functions on trust to a greater degree than in the west. Millions can change hands on a handshake and verbal agreement, something unimaginable in the west, where written contracts and lawyers are essential in such cases. Break this trust, and you will have no business. Word gets around, and if it is bad, you are through.
They also notice things like you having a car, possessions and lifestyle that can not be explained by your salary and station in life. Having a Bentley on a $50,000 salary would raise alarm bells among them, and people would dismiss you as a cheap crook who can’t be trusted to marry their daughter or to engage in business dealings with.
I believe that our Hungarian youth should travel there, study and work and absorb some of the values and example from those marvelous people. I would hope that some of it would rub off on them. Then let them come home and create an economic powerhouse.