Pakistan slips three places on global corruption index

Pakistan slips three places on global corruption index

Pakistan slipped to 120th position from 117

It is not good news for PM Imran Khan led PTI government that Pakistan has slipped three places on Corruption Perception Index (CPI)-2019. The Germany based Transparency International released its latest annual report on Thursday (23^rd January) on corruption index.

Pakistan slipped to 120^th position in 2019. It was at 117^th position in 2018. It is even worse than 2016 and 2017 when according to PM Imran Khan corrupt mafia was ruling the country. It means that the corruption is more rampant in Pakistan compared to 2018. It simply means that PTI government has failed to reduce the corruption in government offices and departments.

The people are still forced to pay bribe to police for the registration of a case. Ordinary citizens are forced to pay bribe for electricity- gas and water connection. The corrupt officials use delaying tactics to mint money from people.  

This report is big blow to the tall claims of PTI government that they are making all-out efforts to eradicate the corruption from the country. The PTI government is claiming to waging war against the corruption and corrupt mafia.

PTI government has also failed to introduce the necessary reforms to improve the governance and to reduce the corruption. The corruption will continue to rife without the reforms.  

PTI also takes credit for the ongoing anti-corruption drive against the opposition politicians. Many have so far been arrested by NAB authorities. Pakistan’s ranking dropped from 117 in 2018 to 120 out of 180 countries on the CPI-2019.

CPI uses a scale of 0 to 100 to rank nations, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean. Pakistan’s score 32 out of 100 is one below its score last year and well below the CPI average of 43 for the year 2019.

However, this year’s CPI also revealed that a majority of countries in the world are showing little to no improvement in tackling corruption. The Transparency International said that more than two-thirds of countries on its list scored below 50 on the index this year.

The Transparency International analysis also shows corruption is more pervasive in countries where big money can flow freely in to electoral campaigns and where governments listen only to the voices of wealthy or well-connected individuals.

The top countries are New Zealand and Denmark, with scores of 87 each, followed by Finland (86), Singapore (85), Sweden (85) and Switzerland (85).

The most corrupt countries at the bottom of the index are Somalia, South Sudan and Syria with scores of 9, 12 and 13, respectively. These countries are closely followed by Yemen (15), Venezuela (16), Sudan (16), Equatorial Guinea (16) and Afghanistan (16).

While Pakistan was ranked 120 on the CPI this year, it did better than regional like Afghanistan (173), Iran (146) and Bangladesh (146). However, India did much better as it was ranked at the 80th place, scoring 41/100 on the CPI, according to TI.

                                                         Khalid Bhatti