Imran govt's anti-corruption performance stagnant:TI Berlin

ISLAMABAD: Transparency International (TI) Berlin has declared that Imran Khan government’s performance to eradicate corruption has been essentially stagnant and with the 2019 score, the country is placed well at the bottom quarter of the assessed countries. “Pakistan's score in the 2019 CPI is the same as in the 2016 and 2017 editions of the index, indicating that progress against corruption in recent years is essentially stagnant and has been for some time,” said TI Berlin in its response to The News’ queries sent through email. To a question about TI Pakistan’s admiration for the present government and anti-graft body NAB for eradicating corruption, TI Berlin said the national chapters regularly comment on anti-corruption developments in their countries. “Transparency International's national chapters around the world regularly comment on anti-corruption developments in their country, especially in the period around the CPI launch in order to provide additional context for the results and cite factors which may not be directly reflected in the index score for the country,” commented TI Berlin. However, this "additional context" doesn't qualify to what index score has found, Berlin office said in its response to The News.

Transparency International‘s Pakistani chapter had issued a statement on January 26 where it lavished praise on the accelerated anti-corruption efforts of the present government and lauded National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for its role, which is being interpreted by observers nothing more than witch-hunt of political opponents of the government.

“Advocate Sohail Muzaffar, Chairman TI Pakistan also said that in the press release of CPI 2019 on Jan 23, 2019, TI Pakistan has praised the increased anticorruption efforts of present government, and under its rule, better performance of present setup of NAB,” said the TI Pakistan in its statement.

TI Berlin has, however, different views about Pakistan’s efforts of eliminating corruption. It rates Pakistan in well below the average CPI scores, which means Pakistan is among those countries, which are perceived to be most corrupt. “Small changes in score are of one or two points are unlikely to be statistically significant. That is the case with Pakistan's one-point reduction in score since last year. It may be more instructive to situate Pakistan's score in the 2019 CPI in a broader context than in relation to the previous year alone. For instance, with its score of 32, Pakistan scores well below the average CPI score of 43. This score places Pakistan well in the bottom quarter of all countries assessed,” says TI Berlin in its email to The News.