ISLAMABAD: Chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Admiral Fasih Bokhari (retired) has said that Pakistan is losing Rs 10-12 billion on a daily basis due to corruption, inefficiencies and tax shortcomings. "According to the NAB, Rs 6-7 billion corruption is being committed in Pakistan on a daily basis but according to other data, this figure has reached Rs 10-12 billion," he said while addressing a news conference at the NAB headquarters on Thursday.
He also released a corruption report on the occasion. To a question, he said that releasing corruption figures did not mean providing an agenda to the upcoming caretaker set-up; but it was aimed at keeping the country on right track. "Gone are the days of military coup against the elected government and the judiciary endorsed it," he remarked.
He said that situation regarding corruption was identical on both federal and provincial levels and the bureau was working hard to curb corruption in the country. Corruption was a longstanding issue of Pakistan and that even Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah had underscored the need for eliminating it, he said.
The NAB chairman also said that as many as 59 laws were passed to tackle corruption since Pakistan came into being. Pakistan could generate billion of rupees by just putting an end to corruption, he added. Bokhari said that the NAB was not the only organisation that had raised the issue of incidence of high corruption. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had also identified Rs 300-350 billion corruption. "The level of corruption in the country has also been identified by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and other local and foreign organisations," he said.
The NAB chairman said that globally taxes contributed 17-20% to the economy while in Pakistan this was 9 percent. "Corruption is no longer party centric or‚ incident-centric phenomenon; but was now an attitude across the board", he said. The NAB chairman said that Rs 5-7 billion daily corruption mentioned by the NAB was a terrible figure for Pakistan but it was an international perception based on various factors of negligence.
The figure is based on annual direct losses as evident from various indicators like internationally acceptable average tax to GDP ratio which was 17-20 percent while in Pakistan this ratio was 9 percent, indicating a total loss of Rs 2500-3000 billion, he said.
The Chairman NAB said PAC also assessed the corruption figure amounting to Rs 300-350 billion. The NAB assessment of direct losses in mega projects (mis-procurements) stood at Rs 350 billion. He said the CPI index by Transparency International since last 10-15 years had been rating Pakistan between 23-27 percent in corruption. A decrease in ratings must be seen from the perspective of increasing number of countries on the index. He claimed that international corruption evaluation structures were based on direct leakage parameters and not indirect losses.
The Chairman NAB said indirect losses, which had not been quantified by the bureau, included untaxed agriculture sector GDP untaxed‚ revenue department‚ land grabbing and encroachments‚ loans defaults‚ over-staffing‚ ghost schools, ghost employments‚ wealth tax losses, custom duties and duty drawbacks. He said only in energy sector, losses due to loadshedding were approximately to the tune of Rs 960 billion per year; "that is 2% of Pakistan's GDP."
He said that the NAB had recovered Rs 80 billion in the current year. Bokhari said that corruption was taking place on a large scale in Pakistan, adding that it was a global menace and that international anti-corruption agencies were making efforts to eradicate it. He also lauded the role played by media towards efforts aimed at eradicating corruption.