According to the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) Country Rankings published by Transparency International, Jamaica has dropped four spots.
Jamaica is currently rated 73 out of 180 nations, down from 69 out of 180 in 2023, according to the 2024 study, which was made public on February 11, 2025.
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Nonetheless, Jamaica has maintained its 2023 CPI score of 44 out of 100, where 0 denotes “highly corrupt” and 100 denotes “very clean.”
The CPI score of 44, which was previously reached in 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023, remains the highest score ever recorded by Jamaica.
The Jamaican Integrity Commission summarized the results, stating that “a CPI score of below 50 means that a country has a serious corruption problem”.
The Integrity Commission stated, “Jamaica has been firmly planted in this category for 23 years. A poor CPI signals prevalent bribery, lack of punishment for corruption, and public institutions that do not respond to citizens’ needs.”
Additionally, it pointed out that Transparency International (TI) has described how its CPI emphasizes the sharp contrast between countries with authoritarian governments that impose oppression and those with robust, independent institutions and free, fair elections.
According to the report, “full democracies have a CPI average of 73, while flawed democracies have an average of 47, and non-democratic regimes have an average of 33.” Thus, Jamaica is classified as a “flawed democracy,” according to TI.
In 2024, TI published a ranking of nine Caribbean nations that speak English. Barbados, the Bahamas, and St. Vincent topped the list, while Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Jamaica ranked last.
The countries that top TI’s 2024 CPI Country Rankings are Australia, Iceland, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Singapore, New Zealand, Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, and the Netherlands.
Venezuela, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Nicaragua, Sudan, North Korea, Myanmar, Haiti, and South Sudan are at the other extreme of the spectrum.
