Turkey has sunk to its lowest ever score on the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), annually issued by watchdog Transparency International (TI) since 1995.

In the 2023 CPI rankings, Turkey placed 115th of 180 countries with a score of 34 points, down two points on its 2022 score. Turkey also dropped 14 places on the CPI table year on year. The CPI uses a points scale of 0 to 100, with 0 = highly corrupt and 100 = very clean, to rank countries according to their perceived levels of public sector corruption.

Since 2018, Turkey has been among a dozen countries experiencing a trend of substantial decline in its CPI outcomes.

Apart from Turkey, the other countries showing this trend are: El Salvador (31 points), Honduras (23), Liberia (25), Myanmar (20), Nicaragua (17), Sri Lanka (34), Venezuela (13), Argentina (37), Austria (71), Poland (54), and the United Kingdom (71).

“Turkey’s (34) steep decline of 8 points since 2015 is due to an overly dominant executive branch and few democratic checks and balances,” TI said.

It added: “Insufficient laws against corruption, reluctance to enforce these laws and lack of judicial independence stand in the way of progress. The tragic consequences of the February 2023 earthquake showed how the price of corruption is sometimes paid in human lives.”

After the catastrophic earthquake, officials were accused of customarily taking bribes to allow construction companies to build huge quantities of housing that, though built in a zone known to be vulnerable to massive earthquakes, was not sufficiently constructed to withstand significant tremors. Tens of thousands of people were killed when shoddy buildings collapsed almost instantly, with critics noting that many came down as if they were built with cards.

In late October, Turkey was ranked 117th oif 142 countries on the rule of law index published by the World Justice Project (WJP), dropping one place in comparison to last year.

Two months prior to that ranking, Turkey was informed that it had failed to secure removal from from the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) “grey list” on countries not doing enough to counter money laundering and terrorist financing.