Pakistan’s score improves on Corruption Perception Index 2016

KARACHI: Pakistan’s score on the Corruption Perception Index 2016 – the most popular gauge of the Transparency International – improved five points during the past four years, depicting a constant decline in the incidences of extortion and bribery in the South Asia’s second biggest economy.  

The Berlin-based anti-corruption watchdog, in its latest report, gave Pakistan 32 score on its Index as compared to 27 in 2012.  This entails that the country is moving on its scale from zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). 

In 2013, Pakistan got a score of 28, in 2014 (29) and in 2015 (30). 

Transparency International also ranked Pakistan 116 in 2016 as compared to Afghanistan (169), China (79), India (79), Iran (131), Bangladesh (145) and Sri Lanka (95).  

The global civil society organisation gleans data from the World Bank, the African Development Bank and International Institute for Management Development to determine the corruption perceptions in the public sector institutions.  

Mohammed Sohail, chief executive officer Topline Securities said generally there have been improvements in all the economic indicators over the past couple of years.   Sohail sees the rise in score too as a flashing economic indicator, which, he said, would build confidence of investors. 

“This is a continuation of success stories,” he said. “But further improvement is needed.”  “More countries declined than improved in this year’s results, showing the urgent need for committed action to thwart corruption,” the Transparency International said in a blog. Not a single one scored a perfect 100. 

“Over two-thirds of the 176 countries and territories in this176 countries and territories in this year’s index fall below the midpoint of our scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean),” it added. 

Pakistan fared better than most of its South Asian counterparts, playing second fiddle only to China in terms of reduction in corruption.  In Asia Pacific, however, India, China and Afghanistan also showed improvement in their scores year-on-year. Especially, war-torn neighbouring Afghanistan recorded almost the double in score this year (15) as compared to eight in 2013. 

But, it’s still one of 10 very corrupt countries on the Index. Likewise, China improved score by three points to 40. India got the same score on the Index.   Lower-ranked countries reeled under poorly performing public institutions, higher incidences of bribery and extortion and untrustworthy law enforcement agencies, like police and judiciary, according to the Transparency International.  

High-ranked countries in the Index clinched scores in between near 80 and 90. These mainly western countries, including New Zealand, Switzerland, Germany and Singapore experienced higher degree of press freedom, public expenditure, integrity of public officials and independent judiciary system.