Report does not reflect rise in corruption: TI Pakistan chief

ISLAMABAD: The Transparency International (TI) Pakistan issued a clarification on Sunday about its recent report, stating it did not reflect that corruption had increased or decreased in Pakistan.

The response came a few days after the government criticised the international non-governmental organisation (INGO) and raised question marks over its credibility.

TI Pakistan Chairman Sohail Muzaffar issued a press release, saying Pakistan’s decline in the overall score in the report did not mean that corruption had seen a rise in the country. “Lowering of Pakistan score by one does not reflect any increase or decrease in corruption as it is within the standard margin of error which is 2.46 per cent, and is the case of score lowered from 88 to 87 for Denmark, which is least corrupt country in 2018 as well as in 2019,” it said.

The statement said certain channels, newspapers and politicians had misreported the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) report “to damage the reputation of Pakistan”. It added the media had not taken data from the Bertelsmann Stiftung Transformation Index 2020 instead it quoted the data from the CPI 2018 index. Muzaffar rejected reports that the TI had claimed Musharraf’s government was the most corrupt and Nawaz Sharif’s tenure was the cleanest.

“Reality is that CPI 2019 has not given any such rating for Pakistan, nor for any other country. The TI does not have its own data input in CPI, and the TI Pakistan has no role in making of CPI, nor has any data input in it,” the statement said.

Muzaffar appreciated the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) performance and approved of the anti-corruption steps taken by the incumbent government. The TI Pakistan chairman clarified that the data in the INGO’s report was obtained by at least 13 different sources and not its own.