Pak govt rejects Transparency International corruption report

Pakistan on Friday rejected a report by a global anti-corruption watchdog, which highlighted increase in rampant corruption in the country in the last one year, terming it as "managed" and "biased". According to a report released on Thursday by Transparency International (TI), an international non-governmental organisation based in Berlin, Pakistan's ranking dropped from 117 in 2018 to 120 out of 180 countries on the Corruption Perception Index (CPI)-2019.

Addressing a press conference here on Friday, Firdous Ashiq Awan, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information, claimed the report was "managed" and "biased". "There is a huge question mark over the transparency of TI. It is necessary to expose the people and the data, on the basis of which this this report was published, in front of the public," she said a press conference.

"Who will respect the findings of a report that says the most corruption was done during the government of Gen Pervez Musharraf, followed by Imran Khan’s government and then by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), placing the PML-N government at the very bottom?" she asked. Meanwhile, Opposition parties, including the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), said the report is a "chargesheet" against the Imran Khan government, which made tall promises to combat corruption before coming to power.

"The TI report is a certificate of failure of the Naya Pakistan project," PML-N Information Secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb said in a statement. "The report has confirmed that the level and amount of corruption committed by Imran Khan's government in the past 16 months is more than any government in the entire past decade," Aurangzeb said.

PPP leader Sherry Rehman said the report has exposed the "so-called accountability process" in the country.

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