TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL AZERBAIJAN REMAINS VERY CONCERNED ABOUT THE PERSISTENTLY LOW SCORE OF AZERBAIJAN IN THIS YEAR`S CORRUPTION PERCEPTION INDEX
The Transparency International national chapter in Azerbaijan remains very concerned about the persistently low score of Azerbaijan in this year`s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) over the past two years: 2.1 in 2007 and 1.9 in 2008, says a press release issued by Transparency International Azerbaijan.
“The country demonstrated a steady increase of its ranking from 1.8 in 2003 to its peak of 2.4 in 2006, because of the number of the anti-corruption measures adopted by the Government and the efforts undertaken by the civil society.
Specifically, the Government is implementing the National Strategy for Increasing Transparency and Combating Corruption for 2007-2010, adopted with the considerable inputs from civil society and international organizations, which makes it significantly more effective than the first National Anticorruption Program for 2004-2006. There are visible improvements in the country`s legislative framework with a number of crucial laws having been adopted (the Law on Combat Against Corruption with amendments; the Law on Code for Public Officials, etc). On the institutional level Azerbaijan maintains a State Commission for Combat against Corruption and a special Department on Combat against Corruption within the Prosecutor`s office, as well as the Government and civil society anti-corruption network, designed to coordinate joint efforts of all the network participants.
Azerbaijan is the only country within Transparency International movement with representation in over 90 countries all over the world to manage 5 Advocacy and Legal Advice Centers all over the country, which render legal advice to citizens.
According to Doing Business 2009 by the World Bank Azerbaijan led the world as the top reformer in 2007/2008, with improvements on seven out of 10 indicators of regulatory reform. Apart from improvements in the business environment, captured by this report, TI Azerbaijan sees also tangible improvements in execution of court rulings, recruitment to public service, calculation of pensions and institutional set-up for handling complaints, especially by the Ministry of Education. Institutions dealing directly with the entrepreneurs have shown a professional attitude with a number of regulatory simplifications and reduction of costs to doing business.
The special anti-corruption efforts of the Government and civil society of Azerbaijan that have been appreciated by the EITI, GRECO, World Bank, OECD Azerbaijan business community (Country Corruption Assessment: Business Opportunity Survey 2006 by Transparency Azerbaijan) have not yet resonated with the wider, broader international business community whose perception changes always with some delays, therefore the national chapter regrets that existing methodology did not permit for some of the above positive reforms to be reflected in the CPI and thus positioned Azerbaijan in a higher position on the scale, which it deserves.
However, TI`s global CPI is a composite index that consists of eight different sources for Azerbaijan, five of which use data covering a period of two years. Such a mix of sources did not permit for many of these positive reforms and accomplishments to be properly reflected and the present change of the public perception and understanding of the progressive reforms will only show over time. TI Azerbaijan also remains fully convinced that the results of these efforts will soon reflect in the latest surveys, such as it did in the Doing Business 2009, and consequently improve the Azerbaijani ranking in the CPI too.”
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