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9 December, 2020
Government Defence Integrity Index: Ukraine In High Corruption Risk Zone
Today, on the International Anti-Corruption Day, NAKO is happy to announce that Transparency International launched its Government Defence Integrity Index (GDI) for Central and Easter Europe (CEE). The Index is the global analysis of the existence, effectiveness and enforcement of institutional and informal controls to manage the risk of corruption in defence and security institutions. GDI is the only global assessment of the governance and corruption risks in defence sectors, based upon 212 indicators in five risk categories: political, financial, personnel, operations and procurement.

The Central and Eastern Europe wave includes assessments for 15 countries.

The Index finds more than half of the countries assessed in the region face a high risk of corruption in their defence and security sectors. Here are some highlights on this region's results:
  • Average score for the region is 48/100.
  • Montenegro is judged to be at ‘very high’ risk with a score of 32, while Azerbaijan’s score of just 15 places it in the ‘critical’ risk category.
  • High levels of transparency see Latvia fare the best in the region, with a score of 67 indicating a low risk of corruption.
  • Authoritarian governments have weakened parliamentary oversight (Poland) and restricted access to information regimes (Hungary), closing off a key sector off from public debate and oversight.
Ukraine’s overall score is 41 out of 100 and it is ranked “D”, indicating a high risk of corruption.
"Recent years have seen the beginning of structural reforms in Ukraine’s defence sector, especially in procurement and state-owned enterprises. However, corruption risk remains high; new approaches require implementation, independent parliamentary oversight needs to be consolidated, and corruption risks in operations mitigated, especially given continuing operations in the eastern part of the country"