Corruption in Pak worth staggering Rs 223 billion in 2010: Transparency International

Karachi, Jun.2 (ANI): Corruption has evolved as one of the major concerns for the Pakistan government , with a report of Transparency International Pakistan (TIP) revealing that a whopping 223 billion rupees were expended in various corrupt practices in 2010.

The report titled the National Corruption Perception Survey 2010 showed an enormous rise in corruption from 195 billion rupees in 2009 to 223 billion rupees in 2010.

According to the report, police and bureaucracy maintained their ranking as the two most corrupt public sector institutions in 2010 also.

Land administration institutions were placed third in corrupt practices, The Daily Times reports.

Corruption in the judiciary, education and local government sectors has also increased as compared to 2009, the report said.

TIP Chairman Syed Adil Gilani said that about 70 percent of people believed that the present Pakistan People's Party (PPP) led coalition government was more corrupt that the previous military regime of General Pervez Musharraf.

"In terms of bribery, land administration was the most corrupt sector, where average bribe paid in each incident was 46, 414 rupees," Gilani said.

He stressed that rampant corruption has severely dented Pakistan's international image, and that some drastic measures were needed to resurrect the problem.

"Corruption is the root cause of all problems in the country and owing to the lack of governance in Pakistan, the credibility of the country has fell internationally. This can be observed from the fact that the Friends of Pakistan Trust Fund, being managed by the World Bank, has not issued any funds to the country in the last two years," Gilani said.

"The government of Pakistan needs to address corruption, as the judiciary did by announcing a judicial policy with a zero tolerance for corruption and the Pakistan Army did by removing its senior officers from civilian postings," he added. (ANI)