Transparency International corrects PM and states corruption in Egypt has worsened

The global corruption watchdog Transparency International has dismissed Prime Minister Sherif Ismail’s recent remarks tying the government’s anti-corruption policies to his overstated account of Egypt improved ranking in the organization’s 2015 Corruption Perception Index (CPI).

“Egypt’s Prime Minister announced that his country had significantly improved its rank on Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index, and misstated the actual rank. The correct ranking of Egypt in 2015 is 88 out of 168, an improvement over 2014 when it ranked 94 out of 175,” the watchdog asserted in a recent statement.

Late last month, Ismail claimed that Egypt had improved its global CPI ranking from 113 out of 176 in 2014 to 84 out of 176 in 2015.

The prime minister attributed Egypt’s assent to the government’s National Strategy to Confront Corruption, which was introduced in November 2014 by former Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb.

However, Transparency International refuted the claim that government had mitigated the extent of corruption, stating that country’s score had actually fallen despite its relative advancement in the CPI rankings.

“In 2015, Egypt’s score dropped to 36 out of 100 from 37 in 2014. This puts Egypt at the lower end of the index, indicating a significant problem with the perception of public sector corruption.”

The watchdog clarified that a country’s ranking indicates its position relative to the countries included in the index that year. The presence of greater or fewer countries can substantially affect the rankings.

Transparency International includes countries in its CPI annual report if a country provides access to at least three sources of data that the watchdog has determined to be statistically relevant to its metric.

The methodology behind Transparency International’s CPI and its ranking system is explained in further detail here.