Uganda is the ninth most corrupt country, the Transparency International (TI) 2002 report says.

TI's global Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2002 released in Berlin yesterday ranks Uganda 93 from a survey of 102 countries.

The bigger the rank, the more corrupt a country is perceived to be.

Uganda is four places higher than its 89th rank behind Nigeria and Bangladesh in 2001.

But countries surveyed increased from 91 to 102 in 2002. Three of the new countries - Angola , Madagascar, and Paraguay - rank behind Uganda.

Of countries ranked last year, Azerbaijan, Indonesia and Kenya slipped past Uganda to worse positions.

"Political elites and their cronies continue to take kickbacks at every opportunity," TI chairman Peter Eigen said while releasing the CPI. "Hand in glove with corrupt business people, they are trapping whole nations in poverty and hampering sustainable development."

TI says in a statement that court prosecutions don't reflect actual levels of corruption.

CPI bases its rankings on perceptions of corruption by business people and risk analysts.

CPI 2002 is based on 15 surveys from nine independent institutions.

Transparency Uganda said in a statement yesterday that Uganda's score was based on a survey of mainly expatriates.

Sources include a Columbia University survey of US expatriates resident in Uganda, a World Bank survey of multinational company residents, The Economist Intelligence Unit's survey of expatriates, and World Economic Forum's African Competitive Report of 2000.

CPI defines corruption as abuse of public power for private gain.

Uganda is ranked three countries ahead of Kenya at 96, but 22 behind Tanzania - tied at 71 with Zimbabwe.

CPI gives countries a mark out of ten to indicate lack of corruption in public life. Uganda scores 2.1 up from 1.9 in 2001, but lower than 2.3 in 2000. Tanzania scores 2.7 while Kenya scores 1.9

Only two African countries score above 5.

Botswana is the least corrupt African country at 24 followed by Namibia at 28 with scores of 6.4 and 5.7 respectively.

South Africa and Tunisia follow at rank 36 with a 4.8 score.

Finland is the least corrupt country (9.7) followed by Denmark (9.5). New Zealand, Iceland and Singapore follow in that order.

Bangladesh remains most corrupt. It scores 1.2 from 0.4 in 2001.

Nigeria remains second most corrupt with 1.6 score.