Pakistan's rank drops by three spots in global corruption index

BERLIN – Pakistan’s ranking in the corruption perception index 2019, an annual ranking released by the Transparency International annually, has dropped to three points, showing a slight surge in corruption in country.

With the signs of loopholes in the system, Pakistan has slid to 120 among a group of 180 countries as compared to 117 in index 2018.

The index, which measures perception of corruption in the public sector, uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean. Pakistan lost one point to drop to 32 points out of 100 against 33 score of the last year. The score is well below from the global average 43.

Delia Ferreira Rubio, Chair of Transparency International says, "Governments must urgently address the corrupting role of big money in political party financing and the undue influence it exerts on our political systems". 

The top countries are New Zealand and Denmark, with scores of 87 each, followed by Finland (86), Singapore (85), Sweden (85) and Switzerland (85).

The bottom countries are Somalia, South Sudan and Syria with scores of 9, 12 and 13, respectively. These countries are closely followed by Yemen (15), Venezuela (16), Sudan (16), Equatorial Guinea (16) and Afghanistan (16).

In the last eight years, only 22 countries significantly improved their CPI scores, including Greece, Guyana and Estonia. In the same period, 21 countries significantly decreased their scores, including Canada, Australia and Nicaragua. In the remaining 137 countries, the levels of corruption show little to no change, said the Berlin-based organisation in its report.

More than two-thirds of countries score below 50 on this year’s CPI, with an average score of just 43. Similar to previous years, the data shows that despite some progress, a majority of countries are still failing to tackle public sector corruption effectively.