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The perception of corruption in Pakistan has seen a rise for the third straight year, with the country sliding 16 places to rank 140th out of 180 countries surveyed by watchdog Transparency International (TI). In 2020, Pakistan’s CPI was 31 and it was ranked 124th out of 180 countries, but this year that score has fallen to 28. In its ‘2021 Corruption Perception Index’, TI noted that corruption levels remained at a standstill worldwide, with 86 per cent of countries making little to no progress in the last ten years.
Looking at scores from previous years, Pakistan’s CPI ranking has been on the decline: in 2020, the country was ranked 124th out of 180 countries, 120th in 2019 and 117th in 2018.According to the report, CPI ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption on a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).
As per the CPI report, a country’s rank is its position relative to the other countries in the index. Since ranks can change merely if the number of countries included in the index changes, the rank is therefore not as important as the score in terms of indicating the level of corruption in that country, the report says. The report used eight data sources to calculate the CPI for Pakistan: Bertelsmann Foundation Transformation index, Economist Intelligence Unit country ratings, Global Insights Country Risk ratings, PRS International Country Risk Guide, Varieties of Democracy Project, World Bank CPIA, World Economic Forum EOS and the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index.
TI’s annual report has always been a contentious subject in Pakistan, with successive oppositions using it to cast aspersions on the performance of the government of the day, whoever it may be. On their part, governments have always downplayed the veracity of the TI data or questioned the motives of the local TI chapter….
Source: dawn.com
