Government has taken umbrage at the recent Transparency International (TI) 2008 corruption perception index since it says the methodology through which the organization comes up with its information is flawed.

Roger Luncheon

Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon told reporters at his post-cabinet briefing yesterday  that the organization’s dependence on certain opinions alone made its style defective when there was a body of credible information that it could tap into.

The report which was released earlier this week ranked Guyana among the most corrupt countries in a survey of 180 countries where it fell  to 126 with a score of 2.6 out of 10. It is the lowest ranked English-speaking Caribbean nation on the list and the second lowest ranked Caricom territory behind Haiti.

Luncheon noted that in the interest of free speech, opinions could always be accommodated but insisted that there was enough reliable information around  to either replace or properly inform opinions. He posited too that  those persons interviewed may have been persons of an anti-government stance or who are not employed  by government.

He said government, however,  continues its work in the same mode.

The corruption perception index  measures the perceived levels of corruption among public officials and politicians in countries, based on different expert and business surveys. Four surveys were used to determine Guyana’s score.

For the Caribbean, St. Lucia ranked highest at 21 with a rating of 7.1, followed by Barbados at 22 with a 7.0 rating and St. Vincent and the Grenadines at 28 with a rating of 6.5. Cuba (65), Suriname (72), Trinidad and Tobago (72), Jamaica (96) and the Dominican Republic (102) also received high ratings.