Public perception: Unemployment, corruption termed major challenges

ISLAMABAD:

Respondents of a survey have termed unemployment, corruption, security and load shedding major challenges facing the nation.

While responding to a people’s perception survey titled “political barometer-2015” conducted by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) from August 25 to September 10, they identified Rangers and army as “leading forces in controlling corruption, followed by media and the judiciary”.



SDPI Executive Director Dr Abid Q Suleri shared findings of the survey with the media on Monday.

According to the survey based on perceptions of 3,014 respondents, around 90 per cent of them considered the China-Pakistan-Economic-Corridor a game changer, 79 per cent considered China a most reliable friend, followed by Saudi Arabia which had the support of 12.3 per cent respondents.

Around 23 per cent respondents perceived unemployment as the biggest challenge, followed by corruption, load shedding and terrorism.

On the performance of chief ministers in controlling corruption, 67.3 of respondents termed the performance of the Sindh government unsatisfactory, followed by 59.1 per cent respondents in Balochistan terming the performance unsatisfactory. Punjab was third in the row, where 45.8 per cent respondents were found to be happy with the performance of the provincial government.



In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the respondents were evenly divided in their opinion with 44.4 per cent of respondents being happy with the performance of the chief minister in controlling corruption.

Around 61 per cent of respondents also said that the government was serious in controlling inflation which they said has increased manifold.

According to the survey, the PTI was enjoying the support of 32.5 per cent respondents nationwide, followed by the PML-N, which had the support of 27.6 per cent respondents while the PPP had the support of 14.5 per cent respondents.

Similarly, around 55 per cent of respondents believed that India was involved behind terrorism in Pakistan while 29 per cent blamed the US for sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan.  Overall, 79 per cent thought that foreign hand was behind terrorism in Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2015.