Pakistan’s position gets worse in latest corruption index

Has corruption decreased in Pakistan over the course of the past year? It doesn’t seem like it, as Transparency International’s latest corruption perception rankings indicate that if anything, the country has featured slightly more corruption in 2020.

Transparency International, the leading civil society organization working to end corruption worldwide, recently released its annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2020. The report showed a grim picture of persistent corruption is undermining health care systems and contributing to democratic backsliding amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chairman TI Pakistan Sohail Muzaffar stated in CPI 2020 that Pakistan’s score has lowered to 31/100 from 32/100 in 2019 and rank has dropped to 124/180 from 120/180 in 2019.

“This is despite the extraordinary efforts of NAB who claims to have recovered Rs 363 billion in the last two years, and Public Accounts Committee claims to have recovered Rs. 300 billion in the last two years,” said Muzaffar in a statement.

Pakistan’s score highlighted in the CPI (Image Credits: Business Recorder)

Muzaffar did add that Pakistan has scored less than last year in two sources: Rule of Law Index and Varieties of Democracy (VDem) due to which Pakistan score in CPI 2020 has reduced by 1. The questions asked by WJP Rule of Law Index and Varieties of Democracy are about the corruption of government officials viz. legislatures, executives, judiciary, police and military.

He stressed that the government has to make efforts to improve its performance in these four sectors.

The 2020 edition of the CPI ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, drawing on 13 expert assessments and surveys of business executives. It uses a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).

Denmark and New Zealand top the index, with 88 points. Syria, Somalia and South Sudan come last, with 14, 12 and 12 points, respectively.