Most corrupt

Bangladesh Nigeria Uganda and Indonesia Kenya, Cameroon, Bolivia and Azerbaijan Ukraine Tanzania Ecuador, Pakistan and Russia

Transparency International (TI) rates Bangladesh at the bottom of a league of 91 countries in its annual corruptions perception index.

Each nation is given a mark out of 10 to indicate a lack of corruption in public life.

Finland, Denmark, New Zealand, Iceland and Singapore all fare well scoring above nine - but Bangladesh gets just 0.4.

Pakistan fared only slightly better with 2.3 points.

'Urgent priority'

In a statement released in Berlin TI said poor countries as well as nations in transition, especially in the former Soviet Union, were often the worst offenders.

Least corrupt

Finland Denmark New Zealand Iceland and Singapore Sweden Canada Netherlends Luxembourg Norway

It also said that in African countries struggling with AIDS the situation was made worse by the fact that corruption was perceived to be very bad.

The group's chairman, Peter Eigen, said it was "essential that corrupt governments do not steal from their own people. This is now an urgent priority if lives are to be saved."

The group says its index for 2001 drew on 14 surveys from seven independent institutions.

It says it reflects "the perceptions of business people, academics and country analysts."

But it said that its survey did not reflect "secret payments to finance political campaigns or the complicity of banks in money laundering or bribery by multinational companies."

Last month 180 countries adopted a declaration against corruption at a meeting in The Hague.

The declaration aims to make governments more transparent and tackle corruption with tighter legislation, new monitoring systems and the exchange of expertise between countries.