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| Pakistan slips into more corrupt category: TI |
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Wednesday, November 18, 2009
By Shahid Hussain
KARACHI: Corruption in Pakistan increased in one year of the PPP government and Transparency International ranked Pakistan 42nd among the world’s most corrupt countries against 47th last year.
Pakistan’s 2009 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) score was 2.4, ranking it at 42, TI Pakistan chief Adeel Gilani said while releasing the report here on Tuesday. Against this, Bangladesh has marginally improved its position also ranked 42nd against 38th last year. India has been at 84th position.
According to the Transparency International ranking, the higher the position of a country on the list the better is its integrity account and lesser corruption. Countries scored highest in the 2009 CPI are: New Zealand at 9.4, Denmark (9.3), Singapore and Sweden tied at 9.2 and Switzerland at 9.0, reflecting political stability and long established conflict of interest regulations.
According to Gilani, anti-corruption efforts in Pakistan had taken a 180-degree turn since the then-president Pervez Musharraf issued the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) in October 2007. The NRO, which granted immunity to politicians, military officers and bureaucrats charged with corruption, enabled the return home from exile of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
The Transparency International chairman accused Pakistan’s Army as the most corrupt institution in Pakistan but added Chief of the Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had, nevertheless, taken up serious violation of public procurement rules by the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) and other violators of rules.
According to the TI report, Pakistan was the second most corrupt nation out of 188 nations in 1996 but now it was listed as the 42nd most corrupt nation. He said the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had submitted as many as 49 references against Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf but it was strange that it was not pursuing these cases.
“Corruption in Pakistan is rampant because of lack of democracy,” he said. He, however, rejected that President Asif Zardari should enjoy indemnity. He said China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were not investing in Pakistan because of corruption. The builders’ mafia in Pakistan was involved in corruption worth trillions of rupees and it was the job of the civil society to expose it, he added.
To yet another question, he said the rise and fall of corruption in Pakistan was not specific to a certain person who was holding the reins of power but it was the system that was bad. He said the armed forces had badly impacted the civilian system and generals should not be given lucrative jobs after their retirement.
“We demand that the armed forces and the judiciary should be brought under the fold of the new accountability law,” he said. Gilani said TI was of the view terrorism was the direct result of poverty accruing mainly from the unconstitutional direct and indirect armed forces regimes in Pakistan between 1951 and 2007 and fully “endorsed by the corrupt judiciary”.
He said the government was governing Pakistan “without governance” and “Pakistan has lost credibility all over the world”. Pakistan was facing serious economic threats, poverty, inflation, food and power shortages and rising tide of unemployment due to the “massive, ongoing corruption”. He said scams of different public sector organisations should be exposed.
Gilani said a political will to fight corruption was “urgently required” and must also be seen by public and donor countries. He stressed the need for the formation of an independent accountability commission as required by the United Nations Convention Against Corruption and it should report only to parliament or judiciary and not to the law ministry to avoid a conflict of interest and unbiased accountability.
Talking about land scams in the country, especially Karachi’s Gutter Baghicha, Gilani said unauthorised allotments by Nazims and fraudulent change in land records by revenue officers reported during last one year in the media should be investigated by a judicial tribunal and land records should be computerised within one year.
The National Corruption Perception Survey 2009 (NCPS 2009) indicates that the overall corruption in 2002 has increased from Rs45 billion to Rs195 billion in 2009. Police and power maintained their ranking as the top two most corrupt sectors, the TI report said.
There has been remarkable improvement in the judiciary. As compared to 2006 when it was ranked third most corrupt sector, in 2009 judiciary is ranked 7th. The survey model prepared by TI in 2002 was used and a 24-page questionnaire was repeated to carry out surveys from 5,200 respondents from all four provinces. The physical survey commenced in February 2009 and completed in April 2009.
Major findings of the Pakistan National Corruption Perception Survey 2009 show:
1. Police, Power, Health and Land are the most corrupt departments, and Judiciary, Customs & Taxation have improved their ranking since 2006.
2. In response to the query on comparing civilian and military government, respondents said civilian government were more corrupt.
3. The Present District Government System has been rated as more corrupt by 66.48 per cent respondents, than the previous District Government System.
4. Majority of (60 per cent) respondents feel that government/armed forces should not be involved in commercial activities.
5. Majority of respondents wants National Accountability Bureau or any equivalent Anti-Corruption Agency should be an independent body under the control of the Supreme Judicial Council.
6. The three main reasons of corruption in view of our respondents were being, ìlack of Accountability, ìLack of transparencyî & ìDiscretionary Powerî.
7. The three measures suggested for combating corruption are ìAccountability of public office holdersî, ìJudicial process to be streamlinedî & ìAppointing on meritî.
8. To the question ìIn your opinion has the media played a positive role in combating corruption, 77 per cent said yes”.
9. Respondents ranking of four most viewed TV channel are Geo, ARY, Express and Aaj.
10. Assuming that there are 21.5 million households (8 persons per house) in the country, average bribery expenditure being Rs9,428 per household, almost Rs195 billion is being cost of petty corruption at the lowest level. In NCPS 2006, it was Rs45 Billion.
11. Motorway police system has been said by more than 82 per cent respondents to have reduced corruption, and 84 per cent have recommended to be implemented in all cities of Pakistan.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
