The Government of Liberia says information circulating on social media originally published by Front Page Africa that Liberia ranks 5th most corrupt country in the world is false and misleading.
In a release issued late Sunday May 16,2020, the government said it attention is drawn to a very misleading and factually incorrect story originally published by FrontPageAfrica Newspaper, which is making rounds on the internet, erroneously asserting that Liberia is ranked “5th Most Corrupt Country in Africa”.
The release quote the GOL as saying “the writer unprofessionally, maliciously and inaccurately scribbled together excerpts from previous Transparency International reports on corruption in a deliberate attempt to distort the facts”.
The statement further asserted that the story claimed to be based on the “latest ranking of Liberia in the corruption index” (an apparent reference to the TI’s Corruption Perception Index – CPI). That report – for 2020 – was actually published in January 2021. And nowhere in there was Liberia deemed fifth most corrupt country in Africa.
The statement went on by say “CPI actually gauges perceived level of public sector corruption based on the opinions of experts and business people. It ranks 180 countries from zero to 100 – with zero being highly corrupt and 100 very clean. In the 2020 report, more than two-thirds of countries fell below 50, indicating corruption remains a global challenge”.
The government further said Liberia, however, ranked 137 of 180 countries, and scored 28. These numbers are similar to neighboring Guinea’s. While not desirable, they show the country fares better than many others on the continent, including Djibouti, Uganda, Angola, Central African Republic, Nigeria, Mozambique, Cameroon Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Comoros, Eritrea,Chad, Burundi, Guinea Bissau, Democratic Republic of Congo , Libya, Equitorial Guinea, Sudan, etc.
The GOL further admonished journalists in the country that Journalism is about truth telling and urged them to tell the truth. At the same time one’s facts is a fundamental precept of news gathering that all reporters ought to follow. It’s sad that this ethical principle was ignored.
Meanwhile the release also stressed that In spite of systemic and historical constraints, the Weah administration has continued to make strides in strengthening the legal and administrative frameworks and activities in curbing waste and abuse of public resources. The latest Millennium Challenge Corporation corruption scorecard and other empirical data are testimonies to
this.
