TIGI should address flaws rather than seek political leverage at the expense of our nation

Dec 22, 2012 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
The Progressive Youth Organization (PYO) is glad that Transparency International Guyana Inc. (TIGI) has responded to our review of their index. There are many issues that render the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) as null and void on measuring corruption.
In our previous statement we explained the issues facing an index that is subjective and that has been roundly criticized by Mahathir Mohamad (former PM of Malaysia), World Bank, Fredrik Galtung (founding member and Head of Research at Transparency International), OECD, Global Integrity, The Economist, etc. The PYO has examined the CPI produced by Transparency International (TI). We have concluded that our original view, based on the World Bank critiques, are correct and have actually been reinforced.
The CPI has constantly been changing their methodology. A major change occurred in 2009 when Prof. Johann Lambsdroff, inventor of the CPI, quit publishing the CPI. In his letter to Mr. Cobus de Swardt, Managing Director of TI, Prof. Lambsdroff stated that there are cases where “data failed to match with the reality”. He concluded that “TI-S will try to continue somehow with a substitute for the CPI. Even though most of them are rather new to the debate, they will try to make the new product look like the old one. This is time for me to let them go their way….I won’t be out there to provide academic credibility.”
Since then, the CPI has gone through several iterations in the methodology used. The 2012 CPI has had a major modification to its methodology from the 2011. This means that no one can use TI data to claim that Guyana is worse off, better off or the same as previous years. The constant tweaking of the methodology would normally make such a task difficult.
With the major changes implemented for the 2012 CPI this task becomes impossible. These modifications completely dismiss the argument that there has been no progress in Guyana fighting corruption. Simply stated, TI’s constant methodology tweaking does not allow for this argument to even enter the realm of discussion.
Let us now examine the methodology itself. TI uses the average of a standardized score of different surveys performed by various organizations. The scores can be 0 (highest level of perceived corruption) to 100 (lowest level of perceived corruption). The terms ‘highest and lowest levels of perceived corruption’ are also very ambiguous and incredibly subjective.
Unfortunately, semantics aren’t the only flaws in the system. For example when the scores in Global Index Country Risk Rating are “standardized” we see many countries sharing the same score. Israel and Eritrea share a standardized score of 52. Yet when averaged with other surveys’ standardized scores, these two countries are separated by 111 places.
Another example is the standardized score of the World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey (WEF) which gives a score of 43 for Iran and 34 to the Czech Republic. Yet, Iran is ranked 79 places lower than the Czech Republic. The standardized scores of the Political Risk Services International Country Risk Guide gave Bangladesh and Qatar an equal score of 50. Yet, Bangladesh is ranked 117 spaces behind Qatar.
These are just a few examples. There is obviously something wrong here. How can two countries share the same score on one survey but be separated by such huge margins when scores across several surveys are averaged? It is apparent that the individual surveys have major differences between each other, although they all claim to be measuring corruption. This would therefore make the averaging of scores between them an exercise in absurdity. The average scores are meaningless as each corruption survey undoubtedly uses different criteria to interpret and measure corruption.
The individual surveys themselves have a flawed methodology. The PYO has previously stated that the World Economic Forum (WEF) scores cannot be trusted, if the WEF “country experts” assess Guyana to have a better railway network than Serbia. An error the WEF has kept making for several consecutive years.
The Guyana “country experts” have a different idea from the “country experts” of Serbia, Brazil, and Argentina when it comes to interpreting the meaning of “railroad infrastructure”. These vastly different interpretations have caused Guyana to rank above Serbia, Brazil and Argentina in railroad infrastructure development. These countries have thousands of kilometres of railway lines, yet Guyana is ranked above them. This is exactly the weakness that exists in perception surveys; different people have different perceptions about a situation.
The divergence in view becomes even starker when the people live and work in different countries and therefore have different experiences. The WEF question in the Ethics and Corruption section, “To what extent does the threat of terrorism impose costs on businesses in your country? [1 = to a great extent; 7 = not at all]” will have very different interpretations in Guyana than in Syria. To illustrate this, the latter is ranked third (score = 6.6) while in the midst of a civil war. These examples show that personal bias, political or otherwise, play a major role in ranking. We can be fairly certain that the “country experts” in Syria are politically motivated; can we rule this out for Guyana?
The PYO urges TIGI to become more critical of the surveys and the effect the TI surveys have on Guyana. Instead of making outlandish politically biased statements based on data that is known to be of little real value, TIGI should be advising TI on how to improve their work. The sensationalism that surrounds TI reports can have very damaging effect on foreign investors, ignorant of the true situation on the ground. Basing their assessment on faulty data and faulty methodology may prevent foreign investment and job creation. The fact that TI’s own Bribe Payers Index varies significantly from its CPI should alert TIGI that a problem exists. The issues highlighted above, together with the fact that TIGI is heavily staffed with Opposition political activists, do not give much credence to the CPI. The PYO urges TIGI to become a truly non-partisan organization by fixing their obvious in-house biases.
Progressive Youth Organization

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