ISLAMABAD: Corruption during the year of 2010 is believed to have attained new heights as the accumulated quantum of the corruption money, as reflected in different reports and assessments, showed that it crossed the figure of Rs1,000 billion during the year.
In the absence of any credible anti-corruption mechanism, because of badly tamed and ineffective NAB and FIA, and owing to the government’s failure to check corruption, Pakistan has already been declared by the international watchdogs as far more corrupt than before.
In the year 2010, the Transparency International found Pakistan to have slipped from the 42nd most corrupt state in 2009 to the 34th most corrupt in 2010.
Although, there is no precise figure of the quantum of total corruption that takes place in Pakistan, the situation is scary and getting from bad to worse as one refers to reports and assessments of different local and international authorities.
Shaukat Tareen, who served the present regime as minister finance till early 2010, says corruption and leakages merely in one government institution — the Federal Board of Revenue — stands between Rs500 billion to Rs750 billion per year.
Talking to The News, he said Pakistan loses around Rs600 billion per year because of corruption in the collection of sales tax alone whereas corruption in the direct tax collection stands around Rs150 to Rs200 billion per annum.
Tareen said Pakistan’s sales tax collection is 3.5 per cent of the GDP, while Sri Lanka collects sales tax that is seven per cent of its GDP. Last year, as the federal finance minister, Tareen had stated on a private television channel that FBR can generate around Rs400-500 billion by ending corruption in the tax department, and plugging the loopholes.
Of late, the Transparency International Pakistan had claimed that the TIP alone had identified corruption cases worth Rs300 billion in different federal government departments during the last 12 months.
The TIP chairman said on Saturday that a complete list of more than 100 cases is available on the TIP website showing irregularities in tenders of procurement involving more than Rs600 billion. The most conspicuous has been $2.2 billion Rental Power Plant project.
TIP Chairman Adil Gilani, who is presently being victimised by the government for highlighting cases of corruption, recently lamented that the government did not show any interest to probe the cases of corruption. He, however, was quoted by the media to have said that it was only the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly and Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) which took notice of some of these corruption cases.
In addition to this, the National Corruption Perception Survey 2010 focusing on petty corruption had indicated last year in its report that the overall corruption in 2010 had increased from Rs195 billion in 2009 to Rs223 billion.
The report had shown that the Punjab was the only province where the present provincial government was rated to be cleaner than the previous provincial government, whereas the ANP-led Pakhtunkhwa Khyber province was rated as the most corrupt province.
Corruption is considered to be the root cause of poverty, illiteracy, terrorism, shortage of electricity, food etc and lack of good governance in Pakistan, but the present regime has not done anything to check the menace. It was non-performance of the government in this area and also due to the bad reputation of the rulers that the government’s credibility is even questioned by foreign capitals and international institutions like the World Bank.
According to some estimates, the most corrupt sector is tendering which eats away at least 40 per cent of Pakistan development budget. It is said that Pakistan needs to address corruption with full political will as is done by the superior judiciary otherwise the menace is bound to spread further. On the contrary, the anti-corruption institutions like the NAB and FIA have been made extremely ineffective and are being led by controversial figures.

http://old.thenews.com.pk/02-01-2011...ews/t-3066.htm