SAO PAULO, Jan 31 (Reuters) – Guatemala, Nicaragua and Cuba reached all-time lows on Transparency International’s corruption index released on Tuesday due to increased organized crime by public institutions, co-optation by political and economic elites and increased human rights abuses.
“Weak governments fail to stop criminal networks, social conflict, and violence, and some exacerbate threats to human rights by concentrating power in the name of tackling insecurity,” said Delia Ferreira Rubio, head of Transparency International, a Berlin-based anti-corruption group.
Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index ranks countries by their perceived levels of public sector corruption on a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). The average for the Americas stands at 43.
In Latin America, Nicaragua and Venezuela are the lowest ranked as each struggles with public institutions infiltrated by criminal networks, the report notes.
The governments of Guatemala, Venezuela, Brazil, Cuba and Peru did not immediately reply to requests for comment on the report.
