Corruption levels in the Caribbean remained elevated in 2013, RBC Caribbean’s latest Caribbean Economic Report has said.

The report published at the end of December 2013 said: “Corruption levels in the Caribbean remain elevated. Transparency International will be hosting a conference on corruption in the Cayman Islands in March 2014, which is very timely given that no Caribbean country saw (its) 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) score improve versus 2012.

“The CPI scores for the Bahamas, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica and Jamaica remained unchanged, though the overall ranking improved by three notches for St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Jamaica’s ranking fell by three spots. Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname and Guyana saw their CPI scores deteriorate by one point each, but the overall rankings for Barbados and T&T held steady, while Suriname and Guyana saw their overall rankings suffer – dropping by six and three notches respectively. The CPI score for the Dominican Republic fell by three points – the largest drop in the Caribbean – contributing to a five notch decline in that country’s overall ranking.”

In the 2013 CPI, Transparency International (TI) Chair Huguette Labelle said: “It is time to stop those who get away with acts of corruption. The legal loopholes and lack of political will in government facilitate both domestic and cross-border corruption, and call for our intensified efforts to combat the impunity of the corrupt.”

The TI report said the CPI 2013 “serves as a reminder that the abuse of power, secret dealings and bribery continue to ravage societies around the world.”

The Index scores 177 countries and territories on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). No country has a perfect score, and two-thirds of countries score below 50. “This indicates a serious, worldwide corruption problem,” TI said. “The world urgently needs a renewed effort to crack down on money laundering, clean up political finance, pursue the return of stolen assets and build more transparent public institutions.”