Transparency International: Costa Rica Is the Least Corrupt Country in Central America
The 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) puts Costa Rica as the least corrupt country in Central America, and confirms once again that it is way ahead of its neighbors when it comes to governance and festering indicators. If you take into account all of Latin America, Costa Rica is third, behind Uruguay and Chile, and fifth in the whole American continent, since the United States and Canada also got better scores.
The ranking is published each year by the Berlin-based NGO Transparency International, and has shown Costa Rica in a similar position during the last 10 years. Costa Rica Íntegra, which translates to Integral Costa Rica and is the national chapter of the organization, noted that the country has been fluctuating in the 50-60 point-rank since 2012, “without sustained progress”.
The CPI has a scale from 0 to 100 points, the highest ranking being that of countries with no corruption at all, which do not exist whatsoever. The best ranked countries are Denmark, Finland and New Zealand, all tied with 88 points. Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Luxemburg and Germany follow, with between 80 and 85 points each.
“Commendable efforts” noted in Costa Rica
With its score, Costa Rica ranks at position 39 of the least corrupt countries in the world, and even though its indicators are better than those of other Central American countries, a lot remains to be done. In 2021, the country became the 38th member of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), and one of its entry requirements was to approve its first ever National Strategy for Integrity and Prevention of Corruption.
The creation of that Strategy and a greater control perceived by citizens in the past year were “commendable efforts” against corruption, said Evelyn Villarreal, president of Costa Rica Íntegra, who also notes than in 2021 the country saw “investigation processes in mega-cases of corruption” on a scale that it had “never seen before.” “But furthermore, it is necessary to give priority and continuity to the initiatives. It will be of no use if the investigations do not end in effective sanctions,” she added.
Villareal warned that “if no sustainable progress is shown” in Costa Rica in the next months, the country’s CPI “could decline again next year.” Its current score of 58 points is lower than its best in the past decade, which was 59 points in 2017. On the other hand, let’s not forget that Costa Rica was ranked at number 18 in the 2020 Democracy Index published by Economist Intelligence Unit, ahead of the United States (25) and only behind of other American countries such as Uruguay, Canada and Chile.
The mentioned countries are anomalies in the American continent, which has little representation in the top of these rankings. Transparency International actually asserts that “the countries of America are totally deadlocked in the fight against corruption. Corrupt leaders target activists and consolidate their power, while press rights, freedom of expression and freedom of association are under attack. Strong action is needed to reverse this trend, protect civil society, and defend human rights and democracy.”
“Central America at its lowest point”
The results of the 2021 CPI left Transparency International worried about the state of affairs in America, but especially in Central America, where the NGO detects that “both democracy and the fight against corruption are at an all-time low.” The situation in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador is the worst that it has been in years, and the lack of transparency of their governments is proportional to the authoritative movements that they are going through.
Nicaragua is the tenth most corrupt country in the world by the CPI standards, having fallen 10 points in the last decade to get to its current score of 20 points. Transparency International says that the neighboring country to Costa Rica has become “the third dictatorship in the region through an illegitimate electoral process, systematic human rights abuses and an absolute concentration of power in the hands of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.”
Guatemala is not doing much better and the United States has sanctioned its Attorney General’s Office for obstruction of investigations about corruption. “The state, particularly the justice system, has been co-opted by economic and political elites, certain sectors of the business community and organized crime. These groups have taken over the judicial system and forced into exile prosecutors and judges recognized for fighting corruption,” says the NGO.
Honduras was a “country to watch” in the 2020 CPI, and it “continued to decline in 2021”, whereas El Salvador is now the “country to watch” because it “could establish itself as a dictatorship if authorities there continue to undermine democracy, harass critics and restrict civil and political rights.” The Nayib Bukele government of El Salvador “has dismissed Supreme Court justices and the attorney general without due process, while publicly attacking and promoting laws that threaten civil society organizations, human rights defenders, activists, and independent journalists.”
For all these reasons, concludes Transparency International, Central America is “at its lowest point.”