National Integrity Action (NIA) has rubbished allegations that it is behind Jamaica’s fall in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released yesterday by Transparency International.

Jamaica fell four places to 74 on the list of 180 countries on the 2019 CPI, with a marginal decline in its rating from 44 to 43.

Some social media users have charged that the decline is part of a campaign by NIA head Professor Trevor Munroe against the Andrew Holness-led Administration.

But during a media briefing yesterday, Munroe underscored that the NIA does not have any influence on the CPI for Jamaica.

“The Corruption Perceptions Index draws on, and is a composite of 13 data sources from 12 independent institutions specialising in governance and business climate analysis.

“For a country to be included in the CPI in any year, at least three of these independent institutions shall have had to provide a score over the previous two years for that particular country,” said Munroe.

He noted that in Jamaica’s case, seven of the 13 institutions provided a score on the basis of which the composite was calculated.

Munroe listed the institutions as The Economist Intelligence Unit, The Global Insight Country Risk Ratings, the World Economic Forum, the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index, The PRS International Country Risk Guide, The Varieties of Democracy Project, and The Bertelsmann Foundation Transformation Index.

“Each of these sources and surveys of experts ask the respondents questions which are based on carefully designed and calibrated questionnaires. Transparency International experts in Berlin simply compile and aggregate the scores for each individual country to arrive at a composite.

“No individual chapter of Transparency International determines or even influences the score or the ranking for that particular country. Hence, neither Trevor Munroe nor National Integrity Action influences or determines Jamaica’s CPI as has been absurdly alleged in some ridiculous social media posts,” declared Munroe.

He noted that in 2017, the first full year of the Holness Administration, the CPI showed significant improvement moving to a rating of 44 from 39 and a climb from 83 of 176 countries in 2016 to 68 of 180 countries.

According to Munroe, at that time, the NIA noted that the performance appeared to be the best in score and rank over the previous 10 years with the possible exception of 2015.

“We warned then against complacency and self-congratulation, and called for a number of measures to bring all hands on deck to prevent regression and to sustain this gain. This was not to be,” lamented Munroe.