More than 90 per cent 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.
According to the results of the National Corruption Perception Survey 2021, 92.9pc of Pakistanis “consider inflation and price hike to be the highest in the current PTI government (2018-2021), compared to 4.6pc in the PML-N government (2013-2018) and 2.5pc in PPP government (2008-2013)”.
In addition, 85.9pc of the people surveyed said their income had shrunk during the last three years. When asked about the reasons behind inflation and unemployment, 50.6pc of them cited government incompetence, 23.3pc said corruption, 16.6pc said lack of policy implementation and 9.6pc blamed undue interference of politicians in government affairs.
A 85.9pc of the survey respondents believed the federal government’s self-accountability was unsatisfactory. Moreover, 66.8pc of them perceived the government’s accountability drive to be partial.
According to the survey, Pakistanis perceived police as the most corrupt sector (41.4pc), followed by judiciary (17.4pc) and contracting or tendering (10.3pc), citing weak accountability, the greed of powerful people and low salaries as the main reasons behind corruption in the country.
The list of public services for which people had to pay bribes, according to the corruption perception survey, was topped by contracts of roads (59.8pc), cleanliness and garbage collection (13.8pc), access to water (13.3pc) and drainage system (13.1pc).
When asked about measures that could reduce corruption, 41pc of Pakistanis called for harsher punishments, 34.6pc said accountability of public officers by expediting the National Accountability Bureau’s handling of corruption cases while 25.3pc said a complete ban on those convicted in corruption from holding public office could reduce corruption.
