The CPI for Croatia is the worst in the last five years. The country is ranked 70 with the CPI score 3.4. Last year Croatia was placed 67th among 146 countries with the CPI score 3.5.
Continuing the negative trend, Croatia increasingly legs behind EU countries, the president of Transparency International Croatia, Zoran Antun Petrovic, said on Tuesday presenting the results of the survey.
Croatia shares the 70th place with Burkina Faso, Egypt. Lesotho, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Poland as the only EU country ranked 70.
To lower corruption to a level which will not represent a threat to a fair market competition and a just division of resources, Croatia must urgently take determined steps, starting with the adjustment of its legislation and the implementation of transparent procedures in the work of public authority bodies, Petrovic said. He added that the poor score showed that business people and analysts had not noticed any progress in the prevention of corruption, namely that they believe that nothing had been done in the past several years to improve the negative trend.
Although they are not exact, these assessment as worrying, Petrovic said.
The survey has been conducted in Croatia since 1999. In 2000 the country's CPI rose from 2.7 to 3.9.
According to the results of the survey released today the best ranked countries are Finland, Island and new Zealand. Denmark is second while the back of the list is shared by Bangladesh and Chad.