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Mikheil Saakashvili is repeating the same, false, story about corruption in Georgia that forced Transparency International (logo shown) to issue a rebuke to two of Georgia's national broadcasters just days ago.

Yesterday (7 November) the president used a visit to a hydro-electric plant in Sakuneti, Akhaltsikhe to claim: "We keep on constructing a contemporary and stable country. We are the centre of this region, we have the lowest corruption. The region starts from China and includes the Eastern Europe and great part of the Middle East."

In fact TI's corruption perception index merely shows that Georgia is a middle ranking country in the president's (somewhat nebulously defined) "region".

Georgia is ranked as 67th least corrupt country in the world. Countries with a better ranking that arguably fall within Saakashvili's region are: Croatia (62nd least corrupt), Turkey, Poland and Lithuania (all ranked 58th least corrupt), Greece (57th least corrupt), Slovakia and Latvia (52nd least corrupt), Hungary and Jordan (47th least corrupt), the Czech Republic (45th least corrupt), Taiwan (39th least corrupt), UAE (35th least corrupt), Israel (33rd least corrupt), Cyprus (31st least corrupt), Qatar (28th least corrupt), Estonia (27th least corrupt), Slovenia (26th least corrupt) and Hong Long (12th least corrupt).

Georgia is doing better than Russia (147th) and Turkmenistan (166th) but that isn't much of a boast. It does also do better than Bulgaria (72nd) and Romania (70th), though technically the difference between these states and Georgia is within the margin of error of the survey.