Pakistan has been ranked 142nd in this year’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) by Transparency International.
Pakistan has been ranked 142nd in this year’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) by Transparency International. The country’s ranking is much worse than Nigeria, Rawanda and Burundi, but slightly better than Sudan and Haiti.
Pakistan continues to remain among “the concentration of so-called failed states at the bottom of the ranking”, says the report released on the International Anti-Corruption Day.
The country’s ranking had plummeted since 2004, when the country fell to 129th spot from 92nd in 2003. It was ranked 87th in 1999, when President Pervez Musharraf overthrew the civilian government. The ranking briefly improved after the military takeover.
Pakistan’s score on the CPI table this year was 2.1on a scale from zero to 10, with zero indicating high levels of perceived corruption. The index draws on multiple expert opinion surveys and poll perceptions of public sector corruption in 163 countries.
It said a majority of people had a poor opinion of the government’s anti-corruption efforts – 60 per cent of the respondents surveyed were dissatisfied with government’s efforts, 19 per cent thought they were somewhat effective, 17 per cent had no idea and four per cent considered them to be very effective.
The survey found police to be the most corrupt department in the country, closely followed by political parties, parliament, tax and registry services, all having the same scores. Religious bodies were graded as the least corrupt in the country. Most of the South Asian countries fared much better than Pakistan, with Bhutan ranked 32nd, India 70th, Sri Lanka 84th and Nepal 121st. Bangladesh at 156th was the only South Asian country placed below Pakistan. India showed the greatest improvement in the region by jumping 18 spots from last year’s position.
Musharraf’s sop for son's in-laws?
LAHORE: Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf continues to misuse his official authority to shower monetary favours on his near and dear ones, especially the father-in-law of his elder son Bilal Musharraf, be it the award of a multi-million high-speed train contract for Karachi or a multi-billion Rawalpindi-Peshawar Motorway project.
In a latest case showing the misuse of official authority, Musharraf has approved the World's first Magnetic Levitation Commercial train project for Karachi and the contract has been awarded not because Musharraf wants Karachi to become modern or overcome its public transport problems but because Brig (Retd) Aftab Siddiqi, the father-in-law of Bilal Musharraf, wanted the US$298 million Maglev contract and got it. The beauty of the deal is that by building the golden three miles of super fast Maglev Track, Musharraf's relative would pocket almost 300 million dollars. At the same time, the Brigadier will get as part of the overall package colossal benefits. The Maglev Project given to him is not on Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis but on Ownership basis. — Amir Mir
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