Georgia ranked 44th among 176 countries surveyed in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index, which has been prepared annually by Transparency International since 1995.

Georgia’s score of 57 points also marks their best result in the survey so far (the higher points the better the result). Compared to 2015, Georgia moved up four places.

The Georgian score is better than that of several EU member states, including Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Malta, Slovakia, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Italy, Greece, and Bulgaria.

Armenia took 113th place with 33 points, which is Armenia’s lowest score to date. In 2015, Armenia took the 96th place with 35 points.

Azerbaijan took 123rd place with 30 points, which shows a slow but steady improvement compared to 29 points in 2015 and 27 points in 2012.

Russia came in 131st place, with 29 points — the same as in 2015.

‘Capture of political decision-making is one of the most pervasive and widespread forms of political corruption in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region, where a culture of impunity prevails among politicians, prosecutors and oligarchs. In many CIS, EU accession and Eastern European countries, it is common to have MPs or local governors who are also business owners, without being questioned by the public, which perceives this as something normal. Companies, networks and individuals unduly influence laws and institutions to shape policies, the legal environment and the wider economy to their own interests’, the authors of the report write.