Yes, the Financial Intelligence Centre report indicates an increased rate of corruption in Zambia

Rating Justification

The process of fact finding has established the depiction of corruption in Zambia by the FIC to be true. As presented on page 15 of the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) report, the number of reports received amount to 14, with a total value of K2,228,000,000 lost to corruption, followed by tax evasion amounting to K717 million. Corruption is cited as accounting for the majority, according to News Diggers. In comparison with records of 2019, when the report recorded a value of K332 million with only 4 reports, this years’ report indicates an increased rate of corruption following an increase in reports of 350% and with corruption alone accounting for K2.2 billion of the money lost. The iVerify fact checkers also took into consideration the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) by Transparency International (TI), a global civil society organization leading the fight against corruption around the world. According to this index, a country or territory’s score indicates the corruption level as perceived by the public on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). In this report, Zambia had been ranked at 33 in 2020, while Zambia scored 34 in 2019 and 35 in 2018; alluding to an increased level of corruption. The index also ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption. Zambia has for the past three years seen its ranking position in this index worsen from 105 in 2018, 113 in 2019 and 117 in 2020. Conclusively, iVerify has corroborated through these reports that the FIC’s depiction of corruption in the country is true, while TI reports for the last three years show that the corruption perception in the country keeps deteriorating.