Pakistan Falls in Transparency International’s Latest Corruption Report

Pakistan’s position has dropped further on the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) recently published by Transparency International, the leading civil society organization working to end corruption worldwide.

According to CPI 2021, Pakistan with a score of 28 ranks at 140^th place on the list, which is a downgrade from the last year’s score of 31 which saw Pakistan ranked on 124^th position on the CPI 2020. The last time Pakistan had a score of 28 was in 2013 when the country was ranked on 127^th position on the CPI.

Speaking on the CPI 2021, Vice Chairperson of Transparency International Pakistan, Justice (R) Nasira Iqbal, said that the absence of rule of law has caused the country to slip from 124^th to 140^th place within a year. It is pertinent to note here that Transparency International hasn’t shared detailed methodology for Pakistan this year which is usually shared along with every report.

The CPI report comes a day after Prime Minister Imran Khan sacked his Advisor on Accountability and Interior, Shahzad Akbar, for allegedly providing him briefings regarding the ongoing mega corruption cases which contradicted the official documents of the cases.

Global Overview

The 2021 edition of the CPI ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, according to experts and business people. It uses a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).

Denmark, Finland, and New Zealand have occupied the top spot on CPI 2021 with a score of 88. On the other end of the spectrum, South Sudan sits rock bottom on CPI 2021 with a score of 11.

Since 2012, the earliest point of comparison in the current CPI methodology, 25 countries significantly improved their CPI scores, including Estonia (74), Seychelles (70), and Armenia (49).

On the other hand, 23 countries recorded a significant decrease in their scores, including advanced economies such as Australia (73), Canada (74), and the US (67).

Recommendations

To end the vicious cycle of corruption, human rights violations, and democratic decline, Transparency International has made the following recommendations to governments worldwide:

• Uphold the rights needed to hold power to account
• Restore and strengthen institutional checks on power
• Combat transnational corruption
• Uphold the right to information in government

Methodology

Transparency International uses data from a number of different sources that provide perceptions among business people and country experts of the level of corruption in the public sector.

The following steps are taken to compile CPI each year:

• Selection of data sources
• Standardization of data sources on a scale of 0-100
• Calculation of average
• Reporting the measure of uncertainty

Read the complete Corruption Perceptions Index 2021 report here.