Jamaica’s struggle to address corruption was highlighted in the most recent Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index Country Rankings.
In the 2023 CPI report, Jamaica scored 44, with a ranking of 69 out of 180 countries. The CPI scores on a scale out of 100, where 0 means highly corrupt, and 100 very clean. Jamaica’s 2022/2023 CPI score of 44 continues to stand since 2020.
“In Jamaica, collusion among the powerful, as well as the overwhelming dominance of the executive over the legislature weakens the parliament’s oversight
capacities, creating conditions ripe for abuse and corruption” Transparency International stated.
“Additionally, the executive’s failure to close gaps in the governance framework
weakens the pursuit of corruption cases involving organised crime and fosters
impunity of high-level corrupt elites,” the corruption watchdog said.
CPI classifies countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption. A CPI score of below 50 means a country has a serious corruption problem. This signals the prevalence of bribery, lack of punishment for corruption and evidence that public institutions do not respond to citizens’ needs.
Nine English-speaking Caribbean countries were ranked by the group in 2023.
Barbados, The Bahamas and St. Vincent and the Grenadines are on top, with Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and Guyana at the bottom – the same order as 2022 and 2021.