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The Subnational Corruption Index (SCI) provides a novel way of tracking corruption, as it gives the numbers for both grand and petty corruption in 1 473 regions across 178 countries. Providing corruption statistics at a sub-national level is important, say Lamar Crombach and Jeroen Smits, who compile and manage the SCI, because “We believe that shedding light on corruption at local levels is a prerequisite for the accountability that national-level statistics alone cannot deliver”.
The index presents scores on a scale from 0-100, where 0 is the largest level of corruption and 100 is the lowest level – so the higher the score, the better. “The orientation matches Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index and the World Bank’s Control of Corruption Index, meaning higher scores mean cleaner governance, in line with international convention.”
Such indices have proven to be very useful for comparative research on the causes and consequences of corruption, say Crombach and Smits. “However, a disadvantage of these indices and thus of existing comparative research is that they are only available at the national level and may therefore hide existing variation of corruption within countries. There is broad evidence that regions within countries may differ in many respects, including socioeconomic, demographic, health, and cultural outcomes, which are all characteristics known to be related to corruption.”
Accordingly, the SCI is subdivided into two components: the Subnational Grand Corruption Index (SGCI) and Subnational Petty Corruption Index (SPCI). Grand corruption generally takes the form of high-level public-office abuse that causes widespread harm to individuals and society, while petty corruption is accepted to take place on a narrower level, usually when a public official and member of the public encounter each other during the seeking or provision of services.
The SGCI and SPCI are developed independently, and the total corruption index (the SCI) is computed as the (unweighted) mean of both sub-indices. The SCI measures 11 dimensions for grand corruption – perceived corruption in the executive, legislative, or judicial domains, in state institutions and agencies, among politicians on an individual and party basis, tax authorities, government officials, law enforcement agencies, local governance, and overall corruption severity perceptions – and eight dimensions for petty corruption, namely bribery experiences when dealing with government officials, the judicial, authorities such as law enforcement or customs, healthcare, documents, utilities, elections, and education.
Vote wisely
South Africans go to the polls again on 4 November 2026, this time to elect local government representatives, and it is important that voters educate themselves as to who is worthy to get their support. A vote is a precious and valuable commodity, which is why political parties go all out during the campaign period to entice voters into their cause.
Fancy words are not enough, though – parties must be able to demonstrate that they’ve lived up to the generous promises they made while on the campaign trail. One way to gauge whether this is the case is by assessing levels of corruption, which the CPI and other indices do at a country level, and the SCI does at the sub-national level.
Information such as that presented in the next section helps voters to decide whether a change is needed in their area, or whether incumbent authorities are doing the best job they possibly can to advance the public interest.
South Africa
South Africa does not do too badly in terms of perceptions of petty corruption (score of 68 – the higher the better, remember) but for grand corruption it slumps to a disastrous 31.8, with an overall country SCI score of 52.1.
This again puts it in the embarrassing position of sitting in the same area of the index as the likes of the Russian Federation, Haiti, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Colombia. With a ranking of 98 out of 178 countries assessed, South Africa’s SCI showing merely confirms its lacklustre and reluctant approach to tackling corruption. The regional figures are 38 for grand corruption and 72 for petty corruption, so South Africa sits well below the regional average as well.
Furthermore, South Africa’s earliest overall score on the SCI, from way back in 1995, was a much more respectable 62.6. This rose to 64.3 in 2008 but was soon followed by a slow slump to the lowest score of 50.7 in 2018, from which it has scarcely managed to recover.
In terms of the provincial breakdown, Gauteng and Free State achieve the dubious distinction of emerging as the provinces perceived to be the most corrupt in the country, with SCI values of 47.2 and 48.3 respectively. The rest of South Africa doesn’t fare much better, with none of the other seven provinces managing to get over the 60-mark. The North West came close at 57.6, but that is not good enough to get it into the green zone.
The best-performing African country is Cape Verde with an SCI score of 79.7 which puts it firmly in the top 20.
