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Global corruption intensifies the long-term effects of the COVID-19 crisis — and it’s costing people their lives, according to a report from Transparency International released Thursday.
The coronavirus crisis “is not just a health and economic crisis, but a corruption crisis as well, with countless lives lost due to the insidious effects of corruption,” the Berlin-based NGO wrote in its annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).
Countries with a higher level of corruption, according to the CPI’s own ranking, tend to spend less of their GDP on health care, the report showed. “Corruption diverts funds from much needed investment in health care, leaving communities without doctors, equipment, medicines and, in some cases, clinics and hospitals,” the NGO said.
The index ranked 180 countries on a scale from 0 to 100, the latter meaning, in theory, that a country is very clean. As in previous years, more than two-thirds of countries scored below 50 in 2020, with an average score of 43.
Denmark took out the equal-top spot in the EU and globally (tying with New Zealand), with a score of 88. Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania were the EU’s worst performers, tied 69th with a score of 44. The U.K. ranked equal-11th with a score of 77, while the U.S. was 25th with a score of 67.
Among the EU, the report focused on Poland (score: 56), where it said “government leaders exploit the COVID-19 crisis for political gain, undermining democracy, human rights and anti-corruption efforts.” Transparency International also called Malta “a significant decliner,” as it “faces significant corruption challenges and suffers one of the steepest declines in the rule of law.”
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