You corrupt! He is corrupt! They corrupt! No, it was them in the previous term. Maybe its judiciary, it must be the law enforcement, \u201crule of law\u201d could be a good catch phrase. Confusion, chaos and another international report on the status of the corruption across the world leaving Pakistan at sixteen points lower than the previous year ranking. Optics are opposition is touting it to be a government failure and the government is definitely defending it. That is how the game is played. But the time is to get to understand the now controversial, \u201ctransparency international report\u201d and how it generates its ranking.
\nUnder the disguise of blames and jabs, the need is to understand the rating mechanism and then draw our conclusions of right and wrong. The minister for information and broadcasting when said that the ratings have been compromised by issues other than \u201cfinancial corruption\u201d, he was right.
\nTransparency international report includes corruption perception index; the making of the index involves the process of derivation of results from data sets drawn from various institutions. These institutions include world bank and world economic forum as well. The guidelines from the transparency international clearly states that, none of the data is generated or collected by the transparency international rather it is borrowed to make a perception of a country\u2019s public sector corruption. The practice\u2019s main goal is to differentiate between the public and private sector situation of a country.
\nThe 2021 CPI has given Pakistan a score of 28 of 100, where 100 represents the most clean or free of corruption. While last year in 2020, Pakistan scored 31 and was ranked 124 of a total 180 countries. While transparency international clearly states that the reason for its decline is deteriorating situation of \u201crule of law\u201d and \u201cstate capture\u201d. Transparency international defines Rule of Law as \u201cLegal and political systems, structures and practices that condition a government\u2019s actions to protect citizen\u2019s rights and liberties, maintain law and order, and encourage the effective functioning of the government.\u201d whenever the corruption is discussed by the bigwig economists and experts in the frame of Pakistan, the words structural deficiencies take its space. The country does have its challenges on the protection of rights to citizens, the recent incidents which include the mob lynching of SriLankan citizen, do represent each one of ours\u2019s real face to the world. The Rule of law includes obeying and respecting the law of the land. We all are responsible for its poor implementation and enhance a lower score.
\nOn the discourse of \u201cState capture\u201d, the transparency international\u2019s Anti-corruption desk states, \u201cState capture is one of the most pervasive forms of corruption, where companies, institutions or powerful individuals use corruption such as the buying of laws, amendments, decrees or sentences, as well as illegal contributions to political parties and candidates, to influence and shape a country\u2019s policy, legal environment and economy to their own interests.\u201d state capture explains the principle of might is right, that has been the ritual and tradition since long in the land of the pure. The continues efforts by the current government have not proved to be that successful but the hope is still alive with the sitting prime minister\u2019s commitment to and his resolve to solve the crisis of rampant corruption.
\nThe corruption indicators for the corruption perception index are not always aligned with the real situation of the corruption in the country. There are some major factors including tax fraud, the citizen perception of the corruption, money laundering, private sector corruption, informal economies and most importantly enablers of corruption including lawyers, accountants and financial advisors. All these factors are not made part of the score on the perception index as the transparency international guidelines dictates. The incumbent government\u2019s efforts to curtail the corruption were mostly focused on the tax fraud, money laundered and formation of entities like citizen portal to address public grievances. In conclusion we can agree on the idea that corruption cannot be measured and assessed through the transparency international annual report only. Even though Pakistan has to go a long way to curb the menace of corruption, reforms are indeed a dire need.
\nThe writer is a civil servant<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You corrupt! He is corrupt! They corrupt! No, it was them in the previous term. Maybe its judiciary, it must be the law enforcement, \u201crule of law\u201d could be a good catch phrase. Confusion, chaos and another international report on the status of the corruption across the world leaving Pakistan at sixteen points lower than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-241402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-national"},"yoast_head":"\n