Global corruption report twist makes govt hero

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan though received its best ever score in the recently released Transparency International’s 2015 corruption index report, yet it is far worse in corruption than India, Sri Lanka, China, Ethiopia, Niger and others.

The TI Pakistan in its recent press release rightly pointed out that Pakistan is the only country among SAARC nations to have gained one point in 2015 as against 2014 but ignored to highlight that still it is 37 stages behind India. It means if Pakistan is the 53rd most corrupt nation, India is 90th most corrupt country.

Pakistan’s score in 2015 TI’s corruption perception index is 30 while India scored 38 -- eight score better than Pakistan. Sri Lanka is 29 stages better than Pakistan while China is 32 number above Pakistan. Both China and Sri Lanka scored 37 numbers in the index. Ethiopia scored 33 and Niger scored 34, and are found 13 and 15 stages respectively better than Pakistan.

Pakistani chapter of the Transparency International (TIP) in its press release interpreted the TI global report in a manner that showed Pakistan to have done better as against its other neighbours includingChina, India, Iran, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal in checking corruption.

The TIP’s reading of its Berlin headquarter report was based on the mere comparison that Pakistan is improving while others either maintained their previous score or lost one or two numbers as against their 2014 index score.

Otherwise in comparison with China, India, Iran, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal; Pakistan is better than Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Iran but worse than China, India and Sri Lanka in term of corruption.

Overall, two-thirds of the 168 countries on the 2015 index scored below 50 (which include Pakistan), on a scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 100 (perceived to be very clean).

In 2015 report, Denmark maintained its first position as the cleanest country. However, as against 2014, Denmark lost one mark and scored 91. It had 92 score in 2014. As per the interpretation of the TIP, Pakistan even did better than Denmark whereas in actual Denmark is 115 stages above Pakistan.

However, the fact remains that Pakistan is improving its past score and showed the best in 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively. Ever since the start of TI’s global annual ratings, Pakistan showed the worst results in 1996 and 1997 during Benazir Bhutto’s regime when it was declared the 2nd and 5th most corruption nation respectively. The score during these two years was 10 and 25 respectively.

Since 1997, Pakistan’s worst performance was during Musharraf junta when it scored 21, 22, 23 and 24 in the TI’s annual index of different years. During the last PPP regime, the TI index also fell to 23 score.

Since 2012, Pakistan is showing continuous improvement. In 2012, it scored 27, in 2013 it made to 28, in 2014 Pakistan further improved to 29 and now in 2015 the country scored 30 in the TI’s corruption perception index.