Poland 61st in worldwide corruption report - alongside Cuba!

I know, I know, I know!

I'm an efficient agent for the extended transmittance and deposition of shitty news about Poland!

The balls of the matter seems to lie with the fact that it's hard enough to source good news here nowadays, or at least we all just seem to be trapped in an unstoppable rollercoaster ride of bitching and whining - brain drains, strikes, rural depopulation, cut-throat capitalism, redundant sects of socialism, corruption, counter-corruption that stinks of authoritarianism, a patriarchal and omnipotent church with it's tentacles lining the corridors of power, unstable governments, potholed roads, a packed and under-financed public transport system, huge hikes in property prices, neighbours who don't how to say hello nor hold a short conversation when ya meet them once a week in the elevator - thank God the women volleyball players have brought us a silver lining to the miserable clouds that teemed rain this evening. Good on ye girls!

Transparency International's latest report on that 'C' word (ssshh, corruption)has good old Polska at number 61, on par with Cuba. It was just tipped by Namibia and Costa Rica who were slotted into the 50's category. Good for them.

When people think currently about corruption in Poland the current election campaign poster of the reigning party Law and Justice party pops into one's mind - "Zlikwidujemy Korupcje." All the many other post-communist trials and tribulations of Poles lured by lots of dosh and power (there are countless examples) have echoes of the truism: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

But let's be fair, the vast majority of Poles are good, honest folk who would like to see corruption ousted from public and private life. They'll have a long wait I'm afraid.

And Poland can count their blessings for the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU, because if they hadn't Poland would have had the not so pleasurable infamy of winning the E.U.'s most corrupt member state for the 3rd year in a row.

According to Johann Graf Lambsdorff, who compiled the 12 year old Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI)for Transparency International, the NGO

ranks countries in terms of the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist amongst public officials and politicians.

The data was compiled from 12 polls and surveys gathered by 9 independent institutions in 163 countries.

The full CPI 2007 report can be viewed at chapter 15
Finland tops the league of least corrupt countries, followed by Iceland and New Zealand at second and third place respectively. The U.S.A. comes in at 21st place, whereas Ireland is positioned at number 19.

Some Tom, Dick or Harry blabbered to me the other day that Bertie Ahern, Prime Minister of Ireland, along with his Fianna Fail cronies were wholly responsible for knocking Ireland down the CPI list out of the top 3 due to their brown paper bag antics! God dammit.......greedy bunch of fuckers.

I'm off to Finland.........