Rwanda emerged the least corrupt nation in East Africa and the Great Lakes Region according to a Corruption Perception Index 2009 released by Transparency International (TI).

The report said corruption is still very much prevalent on the African Continent.

The report released yesterday across the globe ranks Rwanda 89th out of 180 countries, and shared the 10th position of least corrupt countries on the African continent alongside Lesotho, Malawi and Morocco.

Rwanda scored 3.3 out of a possible 10 points, improving by 0.3 from the 2008 score of 3 despite having undergone.

The closest in the region is Tanzania which scored 2.6 from 7 surveys followed by Uganda with a score of 2.5 from 7 areas surveyed by the group. Kenya scored 2.5 with data corrected from 7 surveys as well while Democratic Republic of Congo scored 1.9 from 5 surveys and Burundi comes out last, scoring 1.8 from 6 surveys.

The report indicates that as the world economy begins to register tentative recovery from the financial crisis, some nations continue to wrestle with ongoing conflict, poverty and insecurity and that no region of the world is immune to the perils of corruption.

The African continent however remains on top as the region where corruption is most prevalent.

There is no African country among the top 30 least corrupt states. Botswana, the least corrupt country in Africa ranks 37th overall scoring 5.6 followed by Mauritius scoring 5.4 and 42nd overall with Cape Verde rounding up the top 3 least corrupt African nations.

New Zealand remains the least corrupt country in the world, scoring a whooping 9.4, followed by Denmark with 9.3 and Singapore with 9.2 completing the top 3.

Somalia is ranked the most corrupt country in the world in the 180th position scoring 1.1, closely followed by Afghanistan in the 179th position and Myanmar in the 178th position. Sudan is 4th from bottom, ranking in the same position with Iraq at 176th.

The report indicates that fragile, unstable states that are scarred by war and ongoing conflict including Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq linger at the bottom of index, as a result of weak or non existent institutions in those particular countries plagued by conflict.

According to Apollinaire Mupiganyi, the Executive Secretary of Transparency Rwanda, the country would have scored even better had the watchdog considered data from at least 7 countries like it is in other regional countries instead of just 4.

"For the last 3 years Rwanda has improved in the rankings, moving from score of 2.8 in 2007 to 3 in 2008 and now scoring 3.3 in 2009. If you look at the rankings, Rwanda improved very much compared to the neighbours,”
"Rwanda’s neighbours are actually declining and this is major concern to the region in general.

Not that we are the best out there but Rwanda is doing a better job in fighting corruption than most African countries,” Mupiganyi said at the release of the report.

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