The 2009 CPI is out. As far as Bahrain is concerned, the trend of this index is lacklustre, trending downward from 27 with a score of a 6.1 in 2003 to 46 this year with a score of 5.1. Regionally, we rank right in the middle at the moment being 4th behind Qatar, ranking 22 in the world – with a best score of the region of 7.0, the UAE which ranks 30th with 6.5 and Oman at 39 with a score of 5.5. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait bring up the rear with 63 (4.3) and 66 (4.1) respectively.
And a minister has been named as allegedly implicated in the two billion US$ corruption case while in charge of ALBA over a period of 15 years or so. This is highly intriguing and I’ll tell you why: Although this is not the first corruption case in Bahrain, and I would venture to say that …
When the crown prince announced that we must eradicate corruption in our country, he couldn’t have timed it better. I don’t know whether the thing that prompted both him and the prime minister to reiterate their intention to correct this situation is due to them receiving advance copies of the 2007 CPI Report or they …
Like everyone else in Bahrain, I was thrilled to read our Crown Prince’s unequivocal statement that corruption will no longer be condoned and that even if a minister was implicated in corruption, he or she will get their just desert. I also remembered that our parliament has discussed this issue and the committee tasked with …
We’re floundering around the same position we were classified at for 3 or 4 years as far as ranking is concerned, but the actual score is edging southward this year: To go back in history a bit: in 2003 we scored a respectable 6.1, in 2004 that went down to 5.8, ranking 34, last year …