Pakistan is wasting enormous amount of $15 billion every year due to prevailing corruption as well as the menace of corruption is one of the top most hurdle in doing business. Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, President, Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) was of the view that according to the Global Competitiveness Report 2013-2014, prepared by the World Economic Forum (WEF), corruption is number 1 problem in doing business in Pakistan. Pakistan is losing US $15 billion annually, he said.
Speaking at the PILDAT roundtable discussion on the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the Challenges of Corruption in Pakistan, he said that a former NAB chairman had also said that Pakistan was losing five to seven billion rupees every day due to corruption, he said.
Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, Chairman NAB said that the performance of the bureau has improved by 54 percent in 2014 and NAB has also prepared a law for the protection of whistleblowers.
Chaudhry said that under the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), legislation on Whistle Blowing is an obligation on Pakistan. He said, in this media age, Whistle Blowing Act is imperative for the country. He said Whistle blowing is an early warning system to control corruption at the prevention stage by taking timely measures.
He said that corruption is a complex problem that affects development of both democratic and economic institutions likewise. "Earlier, the bureau had conducted a probe into selective cases but now it has sent references in major corruption cases to the Accountability Courts including Rental Power Projects (RPPs), National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) scam , Police weapons scandal in KP, Steels Mills and Railway scandal," he said.
The NAB chairman said that NAB has received 19,997 complaints from January 2014 to December 2014 and started inquiries of 1,557 cases. "Out of 1,557 inquiries 585 have been completed," he said.
Chaudhry said that NAB has recovered Rs 2.793 billion during 2014 from the corrupt elements and deposited the amount in the national exchequer. "NAB has filed 208 references in the Accountability Courts and in 44 cases the convicts have been punished," he said.
Brigadier Musaddiq Abbasi (Retd), former Director General (DG) NAB, said that in many countries including Iran and China, there is a death penalty for anyone against whom the charges of corruption are proved therefore laws to be improved in Pakistan to curb corruption. The process of anti-corruption includes awareness, prevention, enforcement and eradication of menace of corruption, which is only possible through strict implementation of all these three aspects, he said.
Dr Munir Ahmed, founding president, the Islamic Countries Society of Statistical Sciences, said that the comparative study of the three countries - Japan, Hong Kong and India shows different models in practice in combating corruption. There are many similarities between the anti-corruption models followed by Pakistan and India in which there are multi agencies but weak political will and public support to eradicate corruption, he said.
Ahmed Bilal Mehboob further said that Pakistan is rated amongst the countries with high incidence of corruption that constitutes top 25% corrupt countries. On the corruption perception index, Pakistan has a score of 29, which is the best ever score but is still not satisfactory, he said.
He recommended that for sustained improvement for anti-corruption efforts, the UNCAC framework can be used by the NAB which must also make the review process under UNCAC transparent and public.
Mehboob said that according to the recent report of PILDAT "Public Opinion on Quality of Governance" 42 percent people have shown trust in NAB, 33 percent in Police and 29 percent in government officers.
The roundtable discussion was also attended by parliamentarians, civil servants and senior civil society representatives.