Press Statement on CPI, 2001 by Chairman, Board of Trustees, Transparency International Bangladesh Chapter

Reactions expressed by the Finance Minister and some others in the past few days to the publication of the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) call for some response and clarification from Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB). We would like to present a few facts to the interested public: neither the content nor the time of publication of the CPI was determined by TIB. Dr Peter Eigen, Chairman TI, in his communication of 29th June from Berlin asserted that the CPI has nothing to do with the orthcoming elections in Bangladesh and that "the people preparing the data and the managers here at TI Secretariat endorsing the decision to include them, did not even know about these elections. As is the standing procedure for preparing the CPI, Transparency International Bangladesh nor the Chairman of the Advisory Council was consulted."

The principle obviously is not to involve anyone in the TI exercise in respect of CPI from the country which is being assessed. TIB only made public a document, for the convenience of the press in Dhaka, which was to be published internationally within a matter of 4 hours anyway. The CPI was prepared at the University of Gottingen under the supervision of a technical committee consisting of professors of different universities. The technical committee works independently of TI chapters.

The entire document along with the explanatory framework was given to the members of the press. It was emphasized clearly and repeatedly in the course of the press conference, with quotations from the document, that the Index represented "perceptions which need not be fully in line with reality" in the absence of hard empirical data. The polls were carried out, not as alleged, by ordinary NGOs but by the World Bank (Business Environment Survey 2001), the World Economic Forum (Global Competitiveness Report 2001) and the Economist Intelligence Unit 2001. The results of the 3 polls, that is, the three sets of perceptions, were used and verified against one another. TI has made available not only a score but the range and standard deviation as the precision of the score depends on them. It was made amply clear that the score for Bangladesh was not as precise as that of some other countries in the Index. It was mandatory for TI to include in the CPI such results in all cases where three polls were carried out even though the outcome might not be pleasant for some countries. Incidentally, a Bribe Payers Index has been published by TI to complement the CPI in 1999. The next one is due in 2002.

The correct position is that of the 91 countries listed in the Index Bangladesh's score was the lowest. There is however no reason for anyone to gloat over the perception as disclosed by the latest CPI as some appear to be doing, for the fact is that even in 1996 we were fairly close to the bottom: actually, we were among the five most corrupt countries even then with a rating not resoundingly high. The current disclosure in the TI Index could by no means be construed as an attempt to malign the image of Bangladesh since it is only one among 91 countries.

• Click here to read contributions to TIB's email discussion on the CPI and Bangladesh.
  
  
• Click here for fuller details of the CPI
  
  
• Click here and here for details of press coverage of the CPI in Bangladesh