In the 2016 rankings released last year Latvia was in the 44th place in the Anti-Corruption Index, in the 2017 rankings this year it was in joint 40th place along with Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and just ahead of Cyprus.
Lithuania is in 38th place and Estonia is in 21st place.
This year, New Zealand and Denmark rank highest. Syria, South Sudan and Somalia rank lowest with scores of 14, 12 and 9 respectively.
Liene Gātere, head of the transparency organization "Delna", in an interview with LTV's "Rīta Panorāma" ahead of the release of the results said Latvia was "lagging behind our goals," - though it should be noted the index records the perception of corruption rather than the actual level of corruption which, for obvious reasons, is very hard to establish with any degree of precision.
Gātere explained that over the last year several good things had happened in the fight against corruption in Latvia: a new head of the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB) has been appointed, amendments to the Law on the Financing of Political Parties, the Open Data Portal, the Saeima Analytical Service, as well as other things have been established. At the same time, there are still plenty other thigns to be done to reduce corruption in the country - and its perception, as current events in the banking sector tend to demonstrate.
