Brazil has fallen 10 places (30) in the Corruption Perception Index (IPC) 2023, published on Tuesday by the organization Transparency International. The country recorded 36 points and was in the 104th place.
The IPC measures how experts and entrepreneurs assess the integrity of the public sector in the 180 countries surveyed. The value ranges from zero to 100, where zero means “very corrupt” and 100 means “very honest”.
The better the ranking, the less the country is considered corrupt. Brazil had the same score as Algeria, Serbia and Ukraine.
For example, among the countries in the Americas, Brazil was behind Uruguay (76 points), Chile (66 points), Cuba (42 points) and Argentina (37 points).
Brazil was still two points lower than last year (2022), below the global average of 43 points. This is the second worst performance Brazil has achieved since the index was calculated. In 2018 and 2019 the country only received 35 points.
The bestplaced country in the ranking was Denmark with 90 points. Somalia received the lowest score with 11 points. Below is a list of some positions:
Countries with the highest scores
- Denmark (90 points)
- Finland (87 points)
- New Zealand (85 points)
- Norway (84 points)
- Singapore (83 points)
Lowest scoring countries
- Yemen (16 points)
- Venezuela (13 points)
- Syria (13 points)
- South Sudan (13 points)
- Somalia (11 points)
Explanations from Transparency International
Refinery work identified as a corruption target in Lava Jato is resuming
For Transparency International, in 2023 Brazil “failed to rebuild the political pillar of anticorruption.” However, according to the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU), work is underway to prevent corruption (Read the excerpt from the note below).
To introduce the criticism, the company's report describes former President Jair Bolsonaro's government as “a setback in the fight against corruption in the country.”
“Jair Bolsonaro’s years as President of the Republic have shown how, in just a few years, the legal and institutional anticorruption frameworks that the country has built over decades can be dismantled,” he mentions.
According to the international organization, the fight against corruption is based on three pillars of a control system: judicial, political and social. Columns that, according to the report’s analysis, “attempted Bolsonaro’s attack.”
“This was an administration deeply committed to neutralizing each of these pillars, whether to protect his family from investigations into proven corruption schemes or to avoid impeachment for his countless crimes of accountability and attacks on democracy,” he continues .
Regarding the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, for example, the report criticizes the relaxation of state law.
“There are already signs of a deterioration in the current negotiating conditions between the federal government and Congress with the reintroduction of another important political bargaining tool: the subdivision of stateowned enterprises,” he emphasizes.
In this sense, Transparency International cites the case of Petrobras.
“At Petrobras, the most important Brazilian company and the focus of macroeconomic corruption schemes, the impact is already being felt, as the company's statutes have relaxed political shielding rules and appointed managers to override vetoes by the compliance department, including individuals , who is being investigated for corruption.” “, Highlights.
The report mentions as a positive point of the current government a decision by the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU) to lift the secrecy of documents set by the previous government.
“There has been progress in the area of social control of corruption. The Controller General of the Union (CGU) has lifted almost two hundred abusive secrecy orders of the Bolsonaro administration and, more importantly, introduced rules to prevent new violations of access to the right to information, details.
The deployment of the federal police to investigate illegal espionage by the Brazilian secret service (Abin) is also described as positive in the statement by Transparency International.
And the passage of the tax reform is “evaluated with the potential to reduce the possibility of special regulations and the influence of lobbying or bribes to authorities.”
Transparency International made a number of recommendations. This includes the implementation of a national anticorruption policy that will be developed “with the broad participation of civil society”.
Another orientation was that the government should ensure “maximum” transparency in public investment programs such as the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC).
In addition, the law on stateowned enterprises must be preserved and the governance mechanisms of these companies must be strengthened “to prevent them from becoming bargaining chips.”
Another recommendation to the federal government is to create a nationwide inventory of surveillance instruments used by state authorities and private companies and to introduce strict transparency and control mechanisms for the acquisition and use of these instruments.
In a statement, the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU) said the government “has restored the structure of public policy councils” and that the CGU “works daily to address corruption risks in public policy, contracting and other government actions to correct”. .
In addition, the Comptroller argues that he has “strengthened the integrity of federal agencies and assisted in the implementation of public integrity programs, promoted the adoption of corruption prevention mechanisms by companies, and improved mechanisms for detecting and sanctioning corruption.”