New Delhi: More than 90 percent of Pakistanis believe that inflation and price hikes are the highest in the PTI government’s tenure compared to previous governments, according to a nationwide perceptions survey by Transparency International released on Wednesday, Dawn reported.
According to the results of the National Corruption Perception Survey 2021, 92.9 percent of Pakistanis “consider inflation and price hike to be the highest in the current PTI government (2018-2021), compared to 4.6 percent in the PML-N government (2013-2018) and 2.5 percent in the PPP government (2008-2013)”.
In addition, 85.9 percent of the people surveyed said their income had shrunk during the last three years. When asked about the reasons behind inflation and unemployment, 50.6 percent of them cited government incompetence, 23.3 percent said corruption, 16.6 percent said lack of policy implementation and 9.6 percent blamed undue interference of politicians in government affairs, the report said.
A majority of the survey respondents — 85.9 percent — believed the federal government’s self-accountability was unsatisfactory.
Moreover, 66.8 percent of them perceived the government’s accountability drive to be partial.
According to the survey, Pakistanis perceived police as the most corrupt sector (41.4 percent), followed by judiciary (17.4 percent) and contracting or tendering (10.3 percent), citing weak accountability, the greed of powerful people and low salaries as the main reasons behind corruption in the country, the report added.
The list of public services for which people had to pay bribes, according to the corruption perception survey, was topped by contracts of roads (59.8 percent), cleanliness and garbage collection (13.8 percent), access to water (13.3 percent) and drainage system (13.1 percent).
When asked about measures that could reduce corruption, 41 percent of Pakistanis called for harsher punishments, 34.6 percent said accountability of public officers by expediting the National Accountability Bureau’s handling of corruption cases while 25.3 percent said a complete ban on those convicted in corruption from holding public office could reduce corruption, the report said.
“A significant [part of the] population (81.4pc) has declined that they willingly pay bribe and likewise it was a clear perception that bribes are rather extorted from the public through tactics such as inaction or delay in the provision of public services,” the report highlighting the results stated.