Lebanon in 127th Place in Global Corruption Index

Lebanon was ranked in 127th place in a survey carried by graft watchdog Transparency International on corruption in the public sector in 177 countries.

TI collates expert views on the problem from bodies such as the World Bank, African Development Bank, Economist Intelligence Unit, Bertelsmann Foundation, Freedom House and other groups.

It then ranks countries on a scale of 0-100, where 0 means a country's public sector is considered highly corrupt and 100 means it is regarded as very clean.

Lebanon received a score of 28 while the bottom-ranked countries, which included Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan and South Sudan, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti and Yemen, scored 10 to 19.

In its Corruption Perceptions Index for 2012, Lebanon scored 20.

At the top, between 80 and 89, aside from Denmark and New Zealand, were Luxembourg, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Singapore, Norway, Sweden and Finland.

Denmark and New Zealand are nearly squeaky-clean, the graft watchdog said in its survey. The duo were also deemed the world's least corrupt in 2012, alongside Finland.

Worldwide, almost 70 percent of nations are thought to have a "serious problem" with public servants on the take, and none of the 177 countries surveyed this year got a perfect score, said the Berlin-based non-profit group.

Transparency International's annual list is the most widely used indicator of sleaze in political parties, police, justice systems and civil services, a scourge which undermines development and the fight against poverty.