PTI's moment of truth as Transparency Intl releases ‘Corruption Perceptions Index’ today

ISLAMABAD: Transparency International will release its global report on the 2019 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) today, according to The News.

The report will determine whether corruption in the country under the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government has decreased or increased during the last year.

Pakistan witnessed a slight improvement in the 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index, scoring a point higher than in 2017 but remaining unchanged in the rankings.

Also read: Pakistan sees slight improvement in global corruption index

The country scored 33 out of 100 on the index — one point better than its score of 32 in the previous year. Its ranking, however, remained unchanged at 117 out of 180 countries, same as 2017.

Transparency International’s annual report on CPI is formulated on the basis of input from 13 international agencies. In the case of Pakistan, however, the assessment of eight agencies is taken into account. These include the World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey; the World Bank Country Policy and Institutional Assessment; the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index; the Bertelsmann Stiftung Transformation Index; the Economist Intelligence Unit Country Risk Service; the Global Insight Country Risk Ratings; the IMD World Competitiveness Center World Competitiveness Yearbook Executive Opinion Survey; and the Varieties of Democracy project's findings.

“While the government claims that it has taken effective measures to check corruption and the NAB also takes credit for doing wonders in curbing the menace, some experts do fear bad news for Pakistan,” The News said.

Read more: Corruption declined under PML-N government: Transparency International

These experts referred to reports from some international organisations which in recent months had assessed Pakistan negatively in the area of corruption.

Two of the eight international organisations mentioned above have, in their 2019 report, already assessed Pakistan as 'more corrupt' than 2018.

These reports had raised many eyebrows in Pakistan amidst fears that they may be a precursor to Pakistan losing its position in the 2019 report.

In an earlier Geo News story, published on Oct 13, 2019 and titled “Is Pakistan more corrupt than before?”, an expert on corruption was quoted as saying that the World Economic Forum’s report about the rise in corruption in Pakistan would be considered by Transparency International while assessing Pakistan’s efforts to check corruption in its next CPI report.

Likewise, in the World Economic Forum’s recent report, the ranking of Pakistan on its corruption index had slipped from 99 to 101. 

Before the World Economic Forum’s assessment, the World Justice Project in its “Rule of Law Index 2019 Insights”, had assessed Pakistan to have lost one position in 2019 as against 2018. The Rule of Law Index is also considered by Transparency International in the formation of its annual report about different countries.

Curbing corruption has been the main slogan as well as the commitment of the PTI not only before the 2018 election, but also since it came into power.

In case the report reflects an improvement in Pakistan’s ranking, the PTI government will be praised for its efforts; but a drop, on the other hand, would become a cause of serious embarrassment. 

According to Transparency International’s past data, Pakistan in the last 10 years (since 2010) has improved its index score from 23 in 2010 to 33 in 2018. In 2016 and 2017 Pakistan maintained the same score, 32, which in 2018 increased to 33. However, never in these last ten years has Pakistan been assessed to have performed negatively as compared to the previous year.