The National Accountability Bureau on Friday issued its position paper on rampant corruption in the country, claiming malpractices of Rs 12 billion a day were only the “tip of an iceberg” of corruption, as leakages in almost 13 sectors had not been quantified by NAB.
The announcement of the position paper’s release had set alarm bells ringing for government, garnering criticism from almost all quarters, and making several ruling Pakistan People’s Party ministers lament appointment of Admiral (r) Fasih Bokhari as the NAB chairman.
“The figures of corruption cater for assessment of direct losses per day. It will increase if deterministic study of all sectors is done … The indirect losses not quantified (sector-wise) include agriculture sector which is 20 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) – which is untaxed. Moreover, revenue department, land grabbing and encroachments, loans/wilful defaults, over-staffing/ghost employment, wealth tax losses, like doctors, shopkeepers, lawyers, consultants, custom duties and duty drawbacks, energy losses (2 percent of GDP, approximately Rs 960 billion per year), mega projects delays and cost over runs, administrative costs, foreign exchange outflow, and banking sector,” said the NAB document.
The paper says the corruption index has increased due to a nexus between two pillars of the state – the legislature and the executive – who have formed a single pillar supporting corrupt practices in the country, leaving the country with two pillars of state instead of three.
The corruption evaluation paper says the executive and legislature had joined hands back in 1980s and 1990s, which had aggravated the corruption and corruption was on the rise ever since.
“The CPI (consumer price index) covering last 10-15 years has been constant for Pakistan varying between 23-27 percent,” says the NAB document.
Elaborating the corruption figures of Rs 10-12 billion a day, the NAB document says the figures quoted by NAB are conservative and based on annual direct losses, as evident from the fact that average acceptable world tax to GDP ratio is 17-20 percent.
“Pakistan’s tax-to-GDP ratio is 9 percent. The total loss is Rs 2,500–3,000 billion. Moreover, the PAC assessment of corruption is Rs 300–350 billion. The losses in state enterprises due to incompetence and corruption amount to Rs 300–350 billion. The NAB’s assessment of direct losses in mega projects (mis-procurements) is Rs 350 billion. This takes the tally to Rs 4,000–5,000 billion. Thus the average corruption per day is Rs 10–12 billion,” the paper added.
The paper states that the corruption has increased in the country due to a nexus between incompetence and corruption that leads to low productivity – more profound in our situational context vis-à-vis the developed states.
“Pakistan’s rating decrease must be seen in perspective of increase of countries. Perception evaluated countries increased from 120 to 200. TIP (Transparency International Pakistan) evaluation is to be seen in this context. The international corruption evaluation structures are based on direct leakage parameters and not indirect losses”.
NAB called for a behaviour change in the society, stating that the acceptance of corruption as an attitude in Pakistan was widespread across the board, regardless of political divide and covered all sectors of society – public, private and even the individual.
NAB said the accountability of corruption since 1980s was treated with “benign neglect”.
“Erstwhile, anti corruption institutions were based on political victimisation and post corruption prosecution and neglecting proactively in prevention and awareness regime. The NAB is committed to an anti corruption strategy that is achieving success on pillars of awareness, prevention and prosecution in the same order of priority”.