RAWALPINDI, Sept 23: While the country’s economy was showing poor performance with declining foreign exchange reserves and widening trade deficit coupled with increase in poverty, the 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranked Pakistan as the forty-sixth most corrupt country in the world.The CPI released by the Berlin-based Transparency International on Tuesday says during the era of Nawaz Sharif government in the year 1998, Pakistan’s trade deficit was 3.20 billion dollars, whereas in only first two months of July-August 2008, the deficit rose to 3.52 billion dollars.

Presenting a comparative look on Pakistan and India, the CPI of last ten years indicated that ‘lower corruption better is the economy’. The difference in corruption ranking between Pakistan and India has increased from five in 1998 to 49 in 2008.

The present economic status of the two countries confirms that the economic growth is inversely proportional to corruption. In 1998, the foreign exchange reserves of Pakistan and India were 1.6 billion dollars and 237 billion dollars respectively, and in the last ten years the gap in foreign exchange reserves of the two countries increased from 16 times in 1998 to 26 times in 2008.

“Pakistan needs immediate enforcement of good governance and transparent administration to counter the acute problems,” says Syed Adil Gilani, Chairman Transparency International Pakistan chapter. Pakistan has rectified the UN Convention against Corruption in 2007 which requires the country to establish and promote effective practices aimed at prevention of corruption, periodically evaluate relevant legal instruments and administrative measures with a view to determining their adequacy to prevent and fight corruption, he said. According to World Bank report on ‘Doing Business 2009’, Pakistan has not initiated any reform to ease out regulatory burden of doing business during the last one year.

Mr Gilani said Pakistan at present needs rebuilding which can only be achieved with good governance, political will, judicial independence and effective non-discriminatory accountability mechanism for those civil and defence departments not complying with the procedures including privatization and full attention on addressing the economic issues, ways to adjust bank interest rates, streamlining the fuel and energy arrangements and rationalization of tariff, transparent implementation of system by regulatory authorities.

According to 2008 global corruption report, unchecked levels of corruption would add 50 billion dollars or nearly half of annual global aid outlays to the cost of achieving the MDGs on water and sanitation. In low-income countries, rampant corruption jeopardises the global fight against poverty, threatening to derail the UN Millennium Development Goals.

The weakening performance of some wealthy exporting countries with notable European decliners in the 2008 CPI casts a further critical light on government commitment to reign in the questionable methods of their companies in acquiring and managing overseas business in addition to domestic concerns about issues such as the role of money in politics. The continuing emergence of foreign bribery scandals indicates a broader failure by the world’s wealthiest countries to live up to the promise of mutual accountability in the fight against corruption.

Across the globe, stronger institutions of oversight, firm legal frameworks and more vigilant regulation will ensure lower levels of corruption, allowing more meaningful participation for all people in their societies, stronger development outcomes and a better quality of life for marginalised communities.