Berlin-based Transparency International assessed Iraq as one of the top 15 most corrupt countries in 2018, ranking it 168 with a score of 18% out of 180 countries surveyed. Somalia, ranked 180, is considered to be the most corrupt country in the 2018 assessment.
Iraq's current state of affairs is highly risky and corrupt, TUKO reported. Public officials engage in corruption by accepting gifts and bribes just to get their job done. Conflicts are mostly between the Shiites, the Sunnis, and the Kurds. However, the arrival of the ISIS from Syria has also contributed to the ongoing conflicts. The Iraqi government has failed to successfully implement anti-corruption laws.
The index, which ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople, uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean. More than two-thirds of countries score below 50 on this year’s CPI, with an average score of just 43.
On the other hand, Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi has restructured the Supreme Anti-Corruption Council founded by his predecessor Haider al-Abadi in October 2015.
Abdul Mahdi said Jan. 9 that he would make every effort to allow the council to play a successful role. On Dec. 31, he said he wanted to re-establish the council in order to “take deterrent measures, unite the regulators’ efforts, address corruption and protect public funds.”