Georgia’s score in Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception Index this year was slightly better with the country taking 64th place out of 182 countries surveyed.
 
The index, released on December 1, gave Georgia score of 4.1, an improvement from last year’s 3.8; Georgia scored the same point of 4.1 in the similar index in 2009.

The Corruption Perceptions Index, which ranks countries based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be, scores countries on a scale from 0 - perceived to be highly corrupt to 10 - perceived to have low levels of corruption.

Georgia, which shares 64th place with South Africa, is ranked between Turkey (with score of 4.2) and Croatia (with score of 4) and is ahead of other former Soviet states, except of the Baltic States, as well as ahead of EU-member Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania and Slovakia.

Transparency International Georgia attributed the country’s progress to “the successful introduction of an electronic, transparent procurement system, which has been a very positive development.”

“The government’s steps to make data accessible to citizens online and promote e-governance are very positive,” Eka Gigauri, TI Georgia’s Executive Director, said. “We encourage the government to further increase these efforts particularly in regards of some state agencies, which are considered less transparent.”

The watchdog group, however, also said that despite the progress Georgia’s national anti-corruption system needed more measures for improvement.

“Our recently published National Integrity System analysis shows that Georgia’s system of democratic checks and balances remains weak. The judiciary, the media, civil society, and opposition parties are underperforming as institutions which should balance the concentration of power of the government. The executive branch remains largely unchecked, because of the ruling party’s constitutional majority in Parliament”, Gigauri said.