Corruption

Srila Prabhupada summarises the situation world-wide as follows when he writes this about corruption: “At the present moment, however, there is no guarantee by the government of even the primary necessities of life in the state, namely, the protection of the lives and property of the citizens.” (Canto 4, Ch. 12, text 2/ purport.) Worldwatch and The Sunday Times of India give statistical details which differ regarding the most corrupt country. Firstly, The Sunday Times of India carried this report from Washington on 18 July 1995: “China, Pakistan and India are among the most corrupt countries in the world followed by Thailand, Italy and Mexico, a survey carried out in 41 countries has revealed. Indonesia tops the list of corrupt countries while the other countries in the bracket are Venezuela and Brazil, according to the survey conducted by Transparency International, which claims to be a global coalition against corruption in international business transactions. New Zealand, Denmark, Singapore and Finland are perceived to be the least corrupt, the report which was released here Friday said. According to international businessmen who were interviewed during the survey, there was no country which was entirely free of corruption but there were wide differences in degree. The US is more corrupt than New Zealand, Denmark, Singapore, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Australia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, Ireland, UK, Germany and Chile, the report said.” My information from World Watch Ltd of Washington, D.C. supplies slightly different statistics about corruption, based mainly on surveys and polls related to bribe-taking. Listing the countries from the most to the least corrupted, they rated them as follows: First Nigeria, second and third Indonesia, fourth Colombia, and then the following: Russia, Kenya, India, Thailand, Mexico, China, Brazil, and last, South Korea. The least corrupt, starting with the least, were Denmark, Canada, Singapore, Germany, Hong Kong, the U.S., Chile, Japan, Taiwan and Malaysia.