Press Statement for Immediate Release
Liberia Makes Marginal Progress in 2025 CPI Report: Moves 1 Point Up the Ladder, Highlighting Need for Drastic Reforms to Significantly Improve Performance
Monrovia, Tuesday, February 10, 2026
Ladies and gentlemen of the press, the Center for Transparency and Accountability in Liberia (CENTAL) is pleased to release findings from the 31st edition of Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2025, with a focus on how corruption is undermining global, regional, and national democracies. Since 1995, the Corruption Perception Index scores and ranks countries and regions based on how corrupt their public sectors are perceived. The score ranges from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean), where 0 equals the highest level of perceived public sector corruption and 100 equals lowest level of perceived public sector corruption, according to experts and business executives. In 2025, 182 Countries were targeted.
The CPI draws upon 13 credible data sources, which capture the assessment of experts and business executives on a number of corrupt behaviors in the public sector. These corrupt practices and behaviors include bribery, diversion of public funds and supplies, use of public office for private gain, procurement irregularities, state capture, and nepotism in the civil service. Also, some of the sources assess mechanisms available to prevent and address corruption in a country. Examples include government’s ability to enforce integrity mechanisms; financial, logistical, and moral support to anti-graft institutions; independence and viability of anti-graft institutions; the effective prosecution of corrupt officials and others accused of corruption; conflict of interest prevention; access to information; freedom of speech and the media; and legal protection for human rights defenders and anti-corruption campaigners, whistleblowers, witnesses, journalists, and investigators.
Liberia’s Score and Performance:
In the previous report, Liberia scored 27/100, which at the time represented a two-point improvement. In the latest report, Liberia is now ranked 136/182 among countries covered by CPI 2025, with a score of 28/100. This goes to say, for the second time in 2 years, Liberia moved 1 point up the CPI ladder, from a score of 27 in 2024 to 28 in 2025. Despite the fact that this latest ranking shows marginal progress in the new administration’s anti-corruption efforts, government needs to do more, as the country has maintained its status as one of the biggest global decliners since 2012, dropping by 13 points (9 points under former president Sirleaf and 7 points under the George Weah’s administration).
Despite the marginal progress, CENTAL is deeply concerned over Liberia’s consistent overall poor performance, especially her place among the world’s Worst Decliners. We acknowledge this year’s 1-point increase under the Boakai-Koung led government, which builds upon the 2-point increment in 2024; it shows marginal progress. However, we caution against any form of complacency, as immunity for corruption still remains high, public integrity institutions are still underfunded, the impact of the asset declaration process still unconvincing, and several sanctioned former officials and others who acquired illicit wealth yet to be fully investigated and prosecuted. More so, the recent arbitrary appointment at the Independent National Commission on Human Rights, contrary to the required transparent, inclusive and competitive process, somehow undermines the rule of law.
Regional Highlights and Trends:
On the regional front, the report found that Saharan Africa’s systemic corruption is severely undermining democracy, the civic space, press freedom and other accountability efforts. The Sub-Saharan Africa average is 32, the lowest in the world. The highest-scoring countries in the region are Seychelles (68), Cabo Verde (62), Botswana (58) and Rwanda (57). Notable improvements include, Cote d’Ivoire (43), Seychelles (72), and Tanzania (40). The sharpest declines were seen in Lesotho (37), Eswatini (27), and Liberia (both 28) which has fallen 13 points since 2012.
Global Highlights:
The CPI ranks 182 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption on a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). The global average score stands at 42 out of 100, its lowest level in more than a decade, pointing to a concerning downward trend that will need to be monitored over time. The highest scoring region is Western Europe and the European Union with an average score of 64. The lowest scoring region is Sub-Saharan Africa with an average of 32. The 32-average score of Sub-Saharan Africa shows unending worrisome picture of inaction against corruption in the region, as governments are doing very little to safeguard democracy and match their fine promises with tangible actions to end the culture of impunity for corruption and bad governance.
The vast majority of countries are failing to keep corruption under control: more than two-thirds – 122 out of 180 – score under 50. For the eighth year in a row, Denmark obtains the highest score on the index (89) and is closely followed by Finland (88) and Singapore (84). Countries with the lowest scores overwhelmingly have severely repressed civil societies and high levels instability like South Sudan (9), Somalia (9) and Venezuela (10).
Since 2012, 50 countries have seen their scores significantly decline in the index: those who dropped the most include Türkiye (31), Hungary (40) and Nicaragua (14). Meanwhile, the biggest improvers were Estonia (76), South Korea (63) and Seychelles (68).
Although no country is free of corruption, countries topping the CPI have full democracies and share characteristics of open government, press freedom, strong parliament/legislature, civil liberties, and independent judiciary. Meanwhile, countries at the bottom are characterized by widespread impunity for corruption; poor governance; weak parliament and oversight bodies, poorly-supported and underperforming anti-graft institutions, among others.
Recommendations:
The Marginal progress is noted, but more decisive actions are needed to realize significant improvement on the CPI and other key governance indicators. The 1-point increment in 2025, compared to 2-point increment in 2024 give an indication that President Boakai reduced his anti-corruption speed, instead of accelerating and being revolutionary to achieve greater impacts.
Government must be intentional about ending impunity for corruption and improving governance by ensuring greater oversight and accountability of state-owned enterprises; evidence-based allocation and transparent use of the national budget and other public resources; establishment of the specialized anti-corruption court; adequately financing and demanding improved performance from anti-graft institutions; addressing corruption and other abuses in the judiciary; strengthening legislative accountability and oversight; ensuring greater transparency and meaningfully civil society and citizens’ participation in government’s decisions.
Finally, we applaud individual citizens, journalists, activists and other groups and individuals who have been vocal against corruption and bad governance in Liberia, especially over the last two years. We encourage more demands for transparency and accountability from Government, especially from President Joseph N. Boakai, Speaker Richard N. Koon, Senate Pro-Tempt Nyonblee Karngar Lawrence, and Chief Justice Yamie Q. Gbeisay ho have with the greatest collective responsibility to shape the country anti-corruption efforts in the right direction.
Signed:
Anderson Miamen,
0886818855/0776391481