|
The Institute for Ethics and Economic Policy (IEEP) at Fordham
University. |
|
||
|
Reykjavik, ICELAND SEEKS OFFICIAL'S RESIGNATION. Mr. David
Oddsson, the Prime Minister of Iceland, urged a
member of his own ruling party to resign. Legislator
Arni Johnsen has acknowledged taking about $1,500 worth of goods while
overseeing repairs to the National Theatre in Reykjavik. He did that
by
signing for building materials that were then used for his own private
use.
Johnsen admitted that he made a "silly mistake" and hoped that his
country
would forgive him. Iceland enjoys an international reputation for
little
or no corruption in public life: The 2001 Corruption Perception Index
published
by Transparency International ranked Iceland the fourth "cleanest"
nation
in the world, with 9.1 points out of a possible ten. Thus, it is natural
that many have said Johnsen should resign. (Source: TI, Associated
Press,
July 17, summary by Pavlidis George). The OECD anti-Corruption report for Iceland can be found
at http://www.oecd.org/daf/nocorruption/report.htm
The Index of Economic Freedom (by Driscoll-Holmes-Kirkpatrick) for 2001 places Iceland in the “Mostly Free” category with a rank of 26 (Ranks range from 1 for Hong Kong to 155 for North Korea, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 1, 2000). H. D. Vinod’s trimmed correlation analysis indicates that countries free from economic regulation are less corrupt. After allowing for some exceptions by 20% trimming, the correlation is near 0.9. |
|
||
