Nazaha: KSA’s transparency ranking gets upward boost

RIYADH: The Transparency International Index (TI) organization has moved Saudi Arabia’s rank (48th) upward seven positions on the global index from its previous rank in terms of its anti-corruption drive, according to the TI Corruption Perception Index (CPI) for 2015 released on Wednesday.
TI is a non-governmental organization working against corruption that monitors corporate and political corruption in international development, said the National Anti-Corruption Commission (Nazaha).
Speaking on the occasion, Nazaha head Dr. Khalid bin Al-Muhaisin said: “This is the result of teamwork and cooperation with relevant government agencies to improve the ranking of the Kingdom in our efforts to fight against corruption.”
“We will continue such efforts and cooperation until we reach the target commensurate with the Kingdom’s position and efforts,” he observed.
He said that in cooperation with the concerned government authorities the Saudi ranking continued to improve for the fourth year in a row in the CPI 2015 report.
Al-Muhaisin noted that the Kingdom’s rank in the report actually does not reflect its normal position because of the lack of information that TI needs for its evaluation. He pointed out that the body expects better cooperation of the concerned government agencies in the future to provide the required information and disseminate it through their websites.
This will be under continuous update in order to provide information to TI or other organizations upon their request, in addition to providing the commission with adequate reports about their their offices so that it will be easy for Nazaha to present it at international meetings.
TI issues its annual indicator, which shows the grades and ranks occupied by countries based on the perceptions of widespread corruption in the public sector. The report focuses on the number of points earned by each country and numerical changes to these points in each annual report.