Is Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index (TI-CPI) flawed?

by Eze Eluchie

One form of art which has successfully, over the years, masqueraded itself as a science, is the analysis of societal and economic data.  Without doubt, the collection and collation of such data, when done in a methodological manner, tritely qualifies to be titled as science. The magic and artistry however comes into play in the interpretation and use to which scientifically sourced data is put.

In the hands of the masters of the art, social and economic data can virtually be transformed into whatsoever the entity paying the bill wants the data transformed into. Crafty Statisticians will usually ask their bosses: 'what do you want us to make of this data'? Developments in the areas of presentation skills, audio-visual equipments and technologies and information dissemination protocols have conveniently placed entire humanity at the behest of this art form. Listening to smart statisticians describe dire social and economic situations in superlative lexicon, one may feel an urge to throw caution to the winds in wild ecstasy, only to be brought back to reality when you depart the venues of such presentations and are faced with palpable lack and rot in the surrounding society and population.

States routinely rely on analysis of data on social and economic issues to formulate national policies on such diverse matters as international investments, bilateral trade and even military strategies; at the individual level, our everyday decisions and actions have been, consciously or otherwise, infiltrated and teleguided by 'expert' opinions preferred by these analysts.

One group of internationally renowned socio-economic data analysts who have for long excited my intellect is the group which has a quite grandiose name: Transparency International (TI). TI has for over a decade established itself as an international authority on corruption and transparency in governance issues and with its immense outreach across the globe, facilitated by the presence of diverse affiliate organizations in several countries, amassed access to empirical social and economic data on different climes.

As stated earlier, the data collection is, in most cases, scientific. It will take some discernment to appreciate the inherent artistry:

TI's flagship contribution to international discourse is its annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI). Often times, the ‘P’ ('perception') is conveniently omitted in the mindset of users of the index, thus creating the impression that the said CPI is ordinarily viewed as the worlds Corruption Index (CI) - revealing the standing of countries in a global corruption hierarchy. TI's CPI has attained the level of a global reference point and is often cited by the United Nations and its agencies, regional multinational institutions (AU, ASEAN, EU, OAS and so on), domestic State authorities, opposition elements and civil society organizations variously to buttress the level of corruption in the States which fare poorly in the index.

Are the countries which rank poorly in TI's CPI really the most corrupt in the world? Or could the reverse the case?

Corruption is always a two-way traffic. There is usually the giver and taker (in the case of bribes); the deprived and the depository/recipient (in the case of expropriated loot); the victim and the thief and several other permutations which captures the harm posed by corrupt practices.

The armada of data collected by TI towards arriving at its CPI is simply overwhelming. The countries which rank poorly in the CPI are usually the victim-States of corrupt practices, the territories whose rulers loot with unrivaled frenzy, the States where bribery and corruption seem to be woven into the societal fabric and where the citizenry live, breath and die under the pangs of corrupt practices. But are these countries really the most corrupt or do they simply suffer most from corruption and corrupt practices? Are the States which fare well in TI's CPI merely insulated from the pangs of corruption by virtue of the fact that they only serve as beneficiaries of the corruption and corrupt practices of other countries?

Are there other facts which could be inferred from the data available to TI? A closer look at TI's social and economic data base will divulge interesting revelations usually not announced by the CPI annual reports. Where do proceeds of corruptly sourced funds disappear into? Which States or territories benefit most from global corrupt practices? Does benefitting from corruption/corrupt practices not make a State corrupt? Would the ranking of countries in TI's CPI be reversed or revolutionized if the quantum of loot each State receives is factored into the compilation and evaluation process? Would States/territories like Switzerland, Luxemburg, Cayman Islands, The Isles of Man and other havens for global loot suddenly have a reversal of positions with States/territories like Afghanistan, Haiti, Nigeria and several others, mostly belonging to the Low and Middle Income Country category, whose rulers endlessly cart out entire budgets to foreign bank vaults?

TI's CPI, it must be emphatically stated, has done quite a lot to bring awareness of corruption to the global arena. Global abhorrence for and efforts at tackling corruption will no doubt be enhanced if a real corruption index was extrapolated from the mountain of data available to TI and the several other entities interested in tackling corruption and not merely the 'perception' being disseminated. Tackling the corruption cancer requires efforts of both the victims and the beneficiaries; both the givers and takers; both the deprived and depositories of loot.

When the receiver-State declines to receive, declines to allow their banking facilities to serve as depositories for loot, large-scale corruption will become near extinct.

It can be done.

Picture: © Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index 2012

Living ostentatiously in a cemetery.

by Eze Eluchie

At a time when Nigeria's airspace ranks as one of the most dangerous in the world with high plane crash and fatality rates and our major airports lack basic air-conditioning, luggage and passenger handling facilities and in an era when our public universities have been on strike for over 4 months on account of poor funding of educational institutions, the news that the Minister for Aviation commandeered the purchase, at public expense, of 2 bullet proof luxury sedans at the cost of over 225 Million Naira (US $ 1.6 million) is not only sacrilegious, but bothers on criminality.

The matter is made more sordid by the fact that similar vehicles could be purchased at less than one-quarter of the amount paid.

If the sum deployed to the purchase of these vehicles had been deployed to ensure safer skies and conduct better audit on equipments operated in our airspace, surely, many lives which perished in the various plane crashes in Nigeria would have been saved.

The ease with which this and several other quasi-criminal procurement scaled through all the so-called procurement regulatory mechanisms at various strata of governance in Nigeria, gives a clear indication to the magnitude of fraud, robbery and impropriety going on in the name of governance in our polity.

Questions we should be asking ourselves include:

1. How many public office holders (inclusive of Ministers, State Commissioners Members of Boards of government agencies at the Federal and State level and civil servants)  have undertaken similar scandalously quasi-criminal purchases?

2. Of what import is the continued retention of the Office of Due Process at the federal level, and by whatsoever name similar agencies are referred to at the State levels, in our polity when such brazen criminality continues unchecked?

3. Do these public office holders who engage in these heinous crimes realize that, whether the vehicle is bullet proof, bomb proof or whatever proof, that they will still, at one point in time have to get out of that comfort zone and still be within the grab of their worst nightmares?

4. Do these rascal public officials who indulge in these perfidious acts realize that their greed and profligacy is directly contributes to high unemployment and high crime rates we witness in our polity?

5. Do these public officials realize the direct link between their criminality and youth militancy and terrorism?

6. Do these public officials who indulge in these large-scale looting of public funds really look at themselves in the mirror? What do they see?

Often times one is taken aback as to the level of criminality which flourishes in our climes. What for instance would one be doing with a million dollar vehicle in a country where equally corrupt practices has made the roads impassable for more than half of the year?

Of what use would such profligacy be when equally corrupt practices makes basic emergency personal and health care services impossible - no public ambulance, fire services or rapid police responses are available. 

Of what use is it to live ostentatiously in a cemetery?  

 How do you tell the youths to refrain from crime and corruption when the system rewards criminality and corrupt practices? In a lawless polity such as ours where no arrests or effective prosecutions will follow scandalous crimes, how can any meaningful progress be made?

In a recent media chat forum, President Goodluck Jonathan had sought to downplay the gigantean negative impact of corruption on the Nigerian contraption - in the event that Mr. President was under a delusion previously, I hope he is beginning to awake to the unfortunate realities.

I have always advocated that large-scale corruption, as a major precursor to most heinous crimes, ought to be treated as crimes against humanity - that assertion holds most true in Nigeria, where corruption has assumed a life of its own and now threatens not only the present but also the future of the contraption.

Again, most unfortunately for our contraption. the biased reportage of corruption-related stories by some elements of the Nigerian media tends to polarize the polity and present some segments of our population as though they are more susceptible to corrupt practices than the other - whilst in reality it is a general societal malady. Similar, and at times worse acts of corruption by others deemed 'favored' gets little or no attention from the same media outlets which are vociferous over the present matter. 

Sadly, our contraptions free fall continues.....

Picture: Some of the million-dollar vehicles allegedly purchased by the Aviation Ministry at a time when lack of basic facilities and unworthy equipments have rendered Nigeria's airspace a death-trap.

The "Less Than One-Dollar-a-Day" Untruth.

by Eze Eluchie

An often repeated mantra which founds various foreign developmental and economic interventions in the countries derisively referred to as 'third world’ or 'developing’ countries is the so-called global benchmark for poverty - living on less than U.S.$1.00  a day. The developmental strategies and interventions of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and a plethora of international financial and developmental institutions are ostensibly geared towards reducing the number of peoples all over the world, who live below this proverbial poverty line - the very first goal of the famed Millennium Development Goals (MDG) whose scheduled attainment by year 2015 has mesmerized the international community is so eloquently stated as 'eradicating extreme poverty and hunger'.

The identified goal of reducing the number of peoples living below the ‘poverty line’ is a most worthy cause – what a wonderful world it will be if all persons lived above this ‘poverty line! A thorny issue however emerges in striving towards this lofty goal: ‘how do you ascertain what constitutes the ‘poverty line’ in a world with dissimilar values and value systems?’

Governments all over the world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa hurriedly reworked their various agendas and no public speech by any self-respecting head of government in any forum geared towards addressing developmental issues in the sub-region could be deemed, after the launch of efforts at achieving the MDG's, as complete without reference to the goal of reducing the number of people living below this mythical poverty level.

Regional interest in ascertaining what constitutes the ‘poverty line’ was spiked recently when media networks across the world went awash with the news that a lady who was bitten by a copperhead snake near Washington DC., had to pay US $55,000 for treatment for the snake bite: which comprised basically of anti-venom and some hours of rest at the hospital. The amount required to treat a mere snake bite in the United States was simply incredulous. Going by the mythical figure of US $1.00 a day poverty line, it would take the several millions living below that level, well over 150.68 years for anyone of them to save enough to afford the cost of treatment for a snake bite! This certainly does not represent the reality.

Reflecting on a similar bite from a copperhead snake which an acquaintance had suffered in the course of a holiday to an idyllic village in southeastern Nigeria – a village where most of the inhabitants, in accord with the projections of the international developmental institutions, certainly fall below the proverbial ‘international poverty line’, the fault inherent in the international hypothesis of a 'poverty level' becomes quite glaring. Immediately it was confirmed that what had bitten my said acquaintance was a snake, the village folks directed the victim to the local traditional healer, a man of prestige and comfort in his rural setting, held in very high esteem by the community. After observing the nature of the bite and hearing a description of the rascal snake, the traditional healer went into his hut, a hut made of mud and topped with roof made from palm leaves which served as both residence and consultation room, and came out with a concoction which he administered on my acquaintance. A few minutes after ingesting the concoction, my acquaintance went into a bout of vomiting, a feat which drew pleasure from the healer and his apprentices – who thereafter informed the victim of the snake bite that with the vomiting, treatment was ended, and he was now ‘discharged’ and free: the venom from the snake bite had been flushed out and neutralized. The bill for this quite, effective less than 30-minute treatment, was less than 200 Nigerian Naira (at today’s exchange rate, approximately US $1.25). The cure was absolute effective!

Does that make 200 Naira in real terms, equivalent to US $55,000 as both sums equal to the cost of treatment for copperhead snakebite? Both sums, in US Dollars and Nigerian Naira, did treat similar life threatening situations. And yet, going by the much trumpeted ‘poverty line’, a local resident of my village will never be able to afford the cost of treatment for copperhead snake bites even if all of one’s savings in 50 consecutive lifetimes were aggregated and addressed to the treatment.

The above comparison could be stretched in a thousand and one directions encompassing various life pursuits, requirements for daily and sustainable existence and human aspirations:

For instance, whilst an apartment overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Maine, USA could command a multi-million dollar price tag, an apartment overlooking the same ocean in Banjul, The Gambia, would be 'rated' as worth nil-dollars. The fact that both apartments enjoy unrestricted access to smooth ocean breeze, natural ambience and serenity of the surrounding environment seems immaterial in factoring values. One is called a condominium and the other a mud hut – they both however serve as homes to their different owners; these comparisons could go on ad infinitum.

Faced with the diversity of values, it became ‘appropriate’ under a 'new world order', to find a leveling mechanism that would strive at a unified global perception of values, which is precisely what the ‘international poverty level’, strives, with doubtful validity, to achieve.  Apparently, what has transpired in the quest of attaining a global values system or a global equilibrium to ascertain the poverty line appears to be to generally underestimate and undervalue what some others have whilst placing a premium on what is available in other climes – this hypothesis sure sounds smart to those who are in a position to do the ratings and whose values and norms are invariably rated at a premium to the detriment of the values and norms of other cultures.

Abstract as the foregoing discourse may appear, its application has real life consequences in how humanity relates with one another. The consequences are quite dire for the billions of peoples across the globe that are deemed to live below the poverty line.

The totality of the lives and livelihoods of those who are said to live below the poverty line are valued in such a condescendingly dehumanizing and derogatory manner as to engender their being treated and perceived as sub-human. It has become the norm, in some international economic circles and discourse, to arrogantly compare the daily upkeep cost of, for instance, a pet cat or dog or the daily maintenance cost of livestock in some climes with the daily earnings of those who live 'below the poverty line' – and coming up with such unfortunate conclusions as: ‘it costs more to keep a pet cat than what it costs to keep a family living below the poverty line’. This comparison is hurtful, false and indirectly founds a plethora of xenophobic and some racist mannerisms, as in most cases, the majority of peoples deemed to live below the poverty line are of identifiable physical characteristics.

The reality is that every people have their own inherent wealth, values and parameters of determining fullness and well being. For as long as this individuality of peoples is subsumed under an ‘international poverty line’, for so long will the goal to ‘end poverty and shared prosperity’ which the World bank Chief Executive, Jim Yong Kim, now admits to be the goal of his institution, continue to elude us all with the attendant result in conflict and misunderstanding between our race.

Video: Confession of World Bank Chief Executive Jim Yong Kim in interview with CNN’s Richard Quest: the bank was now only beginning to plan for the dual goals to ‘end poverty and shared prosperity’  

http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/business/2013/10/09/world-bank-poverty-jim-yong-kim-qmb.cnn.html

Picture: Some children who are amongst those deemed by the obnoxious global 'regime' to live below the U.S. $1.00-a-day poverty line but exuding what is obviously a million dollar mien.