Nepal one of most corrupt nations: TI Transparency International (TI), an international corruption watchdog, has listed Nepal among the countries having high rate of corruption. In its Annual Report-2004 published on Friday, the TI put Nepal in the list of 60 most corrupt nations worldwide that scored less than 3 points out of 10. The report of the London-based corruption watchdog is based on an extensive survey carried out in the 146 countries. Nepal scored 2.8 points, indicating high rate of corruption while Bangladesh, Haiti, Nigeria, Chad, Myanmar, and Paraguay topped the corruption list. Finland is shown in the report as the least corrupt nation with 9.7 points while Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore are other top scoring nations. For the first time, the TI conducted survey in Nepal through the Columbia University, World Market Research Development and Merchant International Group. ýCorruption in large-scale public projects is a daunting obstacle to sustainable development and results in major loss of public fund needed for education, healthcare and poverty alleviation, both in developed and developing countries,ý said Peter Eigen, chairman of TI, while unveiling the report. He suggested the governments to focus on corruption control measures to meet the targets of the Millennium Development Goal as set by the United Nations. ýIf we hope to reach the Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015, governments need to seriously tackle corruption in public contracting,ý Eigen said. nepalnews.com mbk Oct 21 04