The government of Ghana is heart-broken by the latest Transparency International Corruption Perception Index report which indicates that corruption in Ghana is on the increase.

The report says that Ghana ranked 62 alongside Romania on the list of 178 countries.

In addition, the president made snap visits to the Tema Harbour and offices of the Customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) where reforms are being implemented in a bid to fight corruption.

He contended the government must do more to show the evidence of the efforts being made in fighting corruption.

The Executive Director of the Ghana Integrity Initiative, local branch of Transparency International, Mr Vitus Azeem, however believes the measures are rather tepid and the commitment to fighting corruption lagging.

“For example the Right to Information Bill has been before Parliament for quite some time now. What is happening to it? It doesn’t look like it’s going to be passed before the end of the year."

 The assets declaration law; there were regulations that were submitted by the Auditor General’s Department bit said they are not working on it.

"They say some of the things are against the constitution. Now, if the government has the majority in Parliament and they can pass STX [housing] loan, they can pass Chinese loan very fast, ROPAL (Representation of the People’s Amendment Law) was passed very fast, what stops them from passing the Right to Information Bills if they are committed to fighting corruption”? he asked.

Explaining what went into the report, Mr Azeem said “this report uses data sources from some credible institutions including to World Bank, the Africa Development Bank, the Freedom House [who] normally make annual assessment of certain governance indicators in each country and so what Transparency International does is to take these scores and do some economic analysis and arrive at some averages.”

Ghana obtained its best CPI score ever last year but could not maintain the momentum. “The message of the CPI is the same: scoring less than five means corruption is perceived. We should be looking at where a country ranks, compared to other countries, especially, regionally. In that case, Ghana ranked 69 in the world and eighth in Africa,” the report noted.

According to Transparency International, corruption remains a serious concern across most of the world, suggesting that the abuse of public power for private gain is widespread, with the law of the land coming second to private profit, reports The Chronicle newspaper.

“Tax-payers money is wasted, and the public purse is drained by kickbacks in public procurement, alongside the embezzlement of public funds and abuses of public resources. Governments are less likely to act in the interest of citizens, because of opaque party financing, conflicts of interest, and the power of vested interests over policy making that goes with it,” the report stated

In the latest report, the CPI scored 183 countries and territories from 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (very clean), based on perceived levels of public sector corruption. “It uses data from 17 surveys that look at factors such as enforcement of anti¬corruption laws, access to information, and conflicts of interest.”

Africa's cleanest nation according to Transparent International, is Botswana, which is ranked 32 globally, with a score of 6.1 out of 10.

Cape Verde, Mauritius and Rwanda follow suit, with ranks of 41, 46 and 49 with scores of 5.5, 5.1 and 5.0 respectively.

New Zealand is ranked the least corrupt nation on earth, with a score of 9.5. The Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Finland and Norway followed suit, with scores of 9.4, 9.4 and 9.3 out of a clean score of 10 respectively.