Reposted from Network Myanmar
Corruption is a serious issue in many countries in South East Asia, not least in Myanmar. This has been recognised by President Thein Sein’s reformist government and highlighted in his major speeches. In late November the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a statement on the matter, adding that they were drafting new anti-corruption legislation to replace the current law which dates from 1948.
Although this is all still very much work in hand, I was nonetheless at first surprised to find that Myanmar is again relegated to a very lowly position in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released on 5 December 2012 by Transparency International (TI). Myanmar occupies the 172nd place out of 176 countries reviewed. The reason for this, I soon discovered, is no mystery. Samantha Grant, TI Regional Coordinator for Asia Pacific, acknowledged to the Chiang Mai-based “The Irrawaddy” that Myanmar’s reform process has not yet had any impact on their latest corruption ranking and that some of the information for the survey is two years (and I suspect maybe more) out of date. More…
