As per the National Corruption Barometer Report 2020, the government’s effectiveness in handling and fighting corruption is on the decline. The ratings on government curbing corruption, promoting good governance and upholding the respect for the rule of law dropped considerably when compared to the corruption barometer survey 2016.
Compared to the corruption barometer study of 2016, the respondents who rated the government well on upholding respect for the rule of law dropped from 82 per cent to 69.6 per cent this year. Similarly, the ratings on promoting good governance by a government also dropped from 80 per cent to 69.4 per cent and ratings on fighting corruption too dropped from 85 per cent to 62 per cent in 2020. The greatest drop occurred in the government’s performance in fighting corruption according to the National Corruption Barometer Survey (NCBR) 2020 carried out by the Bhutan Transparency Initiative.
A higher proportion of the respondents residing in the western and central districts rated the government not doing well in terms of fighting corruption as compared to the respondents from the eastern Dzongkhags.
Likewise, the latest study also saw that there is a consistent decline in the percentage of the respondents who say that the registered political parties are effective in preventing corruption. Those who rated political parties as being ineffective cited various reasons from political parties being the perpetrators of corruption to being indifferent to corruption upon coming to power and to bribing electorates during election campaigns.
And in view of the substantial incidences of bribery during elections and respondents reporting that voting for clean candidates and political parties are an ineffective measure for fighting corruption, the report recommended Election Commission of Bhutan to enhance measures to curb corruption in the election.
Passang Dorji
