Over 90pc Pakistanis believe inflation highest during PTI govt: survey

85% say their incomes shrunk over past three years; majority believes police and judges to be most corrupt

At least 85.9 per cent of Pakistanis believe that their income has been squeezed during the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, whereas 92.9 per cent consider inflation and price hike to be the highest during the current government.

The results were shared by Transparency International Pakistan after it conducted a “nationwide” survey, National Corruption Perception Survey (NCPS) 2021. “The NCPS 2021 comprises the perception of levels and frequency of corruption faced by common Pakistanis on a daily basis,” the TI Pakistan said.

“Compared to the three federal governments, majority of Pakistanis (92.9%) consider inflation and price hike to be [the] highest in the current PTI government [tenure] (2018-2021), compared to 4.6 % in [the] PML-N government (2013-2018) and 2.5% in [the] PPP government (2008-2013),” the report said in connection to the inflation.

According to participants of the survey, government incompetence was the main reason behind the rising inflation and shrinking income. At least 50.6pc said the government was incompetent, 23.3pc blamed it on corruption, 16.6pc said lack of policy implementation was the reason, whereas 9.6pc blamed the inflation on the meddling of politicians in government affairs.

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Regarding the government’s anti-corruption drive, 66.8% said that the PTI government’s accountability drive was partial, whereas 85.9% considered the federal government’s self-accountability to be unsatisfactory.

At least 51.9% of Pakistanis blamed weak accountability for rise in corruption, whereas 29.3% linked it to the greed of powerful people and 18.8% blamed it on low salaries.

“As measures to reduce corruption, 40.1% Pakistanis say increase/stringent punishments for corruption cases, 34.6% Pakistanis say accountability of public officers by expediting NAB’s handling of corruption cases, and 25.3% say a complete ban on those convicted in corruption from holding public office, are key to combat corruption in Pakistan,” the TI-Pakistan report noted.

Police, judiciary most corrupt

According to the survey, police remained the most corrupt sector, followed by the Pakistani judiciary seen as the second most corrupt. Tendering and contracting made it to the third spot whereas the health sector jumped to the fourth position in the corruption index.

At least 41.4% of people thought police to be one of the most corrupt sectors, whereas 17.4% believed it to be the judiciary and 10.3% said contracting and tendering was the most corrupt sector.

As far as public services are concerned, 59.8% of Pakistanis believed road contracts top the list for which people have to pay bribes. On the other hand, 13.8% said it was cleanliness and garbage collection services, whereas 13.3% said it was ‘access to water. Only 13.1% said it was the drainage system for which they had to pay most bribes.

The report stated that 89.1pc of Pakistanis said that they did not pay any bribe to a government official during the federal government's pandemic-related relief efforts.

Local govt system

The survey also shed light on the local government (LG) system and the role it could have played to mitigate the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic.

About 47.8% of Pakistanis considered that if LG elected representatives were in place, Covid-19 public awareness campaigns could have been launched in an effective manner.

A total of 72.8% believed that public sector corruption at the grassroots levels had increased due to the absence of local governments.