HGP Nightly News – The 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index presents Guyana with a paradoxical verdict: a nation earning rare praise for progress, yet still carrying the heavy label of serious corruption. Transparency International’s annual report identifies Guyana as one of only two countries in the Americas, alongside the Dominican Republic, to have “significantly improved” its corruption perception score since 2012. This year, Guyana achieved a score of 40 out of 100, a one-point increase from 39 in 2024.
The improvement is noteworthy. It places Guyana in exclusive company within a region the report describes as showing “no progress” in the fight against corruption. The Americas average just 42, with 12 of 33 nations significantly worsening over the past decade. The report warns that “years of government inaction have eroded democracy, enabled organised crime, and directly harmed citizens by undermining human rights, public services, and security.”
Yet Guyana’s elevation from 39 to 40 requires context. The nation has not surpassed its 2023 score of 40. Three years of CPI data reveal stagnation, not transformation. And critically, a score of 40 remains firmly within the index’s classification for countries with “serious corruption problems.” It is a marginal gain, not a milestone.
This mixed picture arrives at a moment of heightened domestic scrutiny. Throughout the recent 2026 budget debate, opposition parliamentarians repeatedly argued that record public expenditure is outpacing institutional oversight. Allegations of “phantom projects,” unverified infrastructure spending, and contracts awarded without competitive transparency dominated parliamentary exchanges. The CPI’s findings do not prove those claims, but they lend international credence to concerns that accountability frameworks are not keeping pace with the scale of national spending.
For Guyana, the 2025 CPI offers a tempered message. Progress is possible and has been recognised. But the distance travelled remains short, and the terrain ahead steep. In an era of unprecedented oil wealth, a score of 40 is not a verdict of success, it is a warning that the fight against corruption has only just begun.
