While Panama has a lot of bragging rights and this is truly a great little country that is going places, corruption will be it’s Achilles Heal and something must be done to stop it. The latest scandal is one of titling government property at give away prices where it is transferred to wealthy people of power or politicians.
In 2011 Costa Rica remained the best positioned in Central America, but fell from position 41 to 50, followed by El Salvador, which fell from 73 to 80, Panama (73 to 86), Guatemala (91 to 120) , Honduras (climbed from 134 to 129) and Nicaragua (dropped from 127 to 134).
Within Latin America, the sub region of Central America and the Caribbean was by far the worst performing in the ranking. Its representatives include the 5 countries that lost the most positions: Guatemala (29 positions), Dominican Republic (28 positions), Trinidad and Tobago (18 positions), Panama (13 positions) and Costa Rica (9 positions).
In absolute terms, the best positioned in Latin America are still Chile (21), Uruguay (24) and Puerto Rico (39), while the worst are Haiti (175), Venezuela (172) and Paraguay (154).
The index ranks 183 countries and territories with a score between 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (very transparent) according to perceived levels of public sector corruption. It uses data from 17 surveys that analyze factors such as enforcement of laws against corruption, access to information and conflicts of interest.
New Zealand won the first position, followed by Finland and Denmark, while in the last place are Somalia and North Korea (for the first time included in the Index).
“2011 represents a unique moment for the movement which demands greater transparency because citizens around the world have been calling for their governments to be accountable for the actions they take. The countries that scored high marks show that transparency measures, as are constant, can, over time, succeed and benefit the population”, said Executive Director of Transparency International, Cobus de Swardt.
Tom, you are missing the REAL scandal about the land titling debacle. Its not that the government gave away land to a couple of “connected” folks in violation of the law. That’s been going on for years. Its that, despite the passage of a law 3 years ago that supposedly allowed people holding rights of possession on island and coastal land to title it if they could prove they were actually “occupying” it, no titles have been issued, although hundreds of people have applied. The government has signaled its intent to repeal that law, and make titling “discretionary” again – in other words, preserve a lucrative opportunity for graft. Another big scandal is that legitimate property owners continue to have their land stolen by “connected” developers, with the overt assistance of corrupt politicians at all levels of government.