Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI’s) narrative of corruption has fallen flat on its face. A study of Pakistan’s ranking on the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) since 2008 shows how the PTI plunged the country into corruption during its tenure, while the Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) improved governance, leading to an improved ranking.
The latest report by Transparency International (TI) released on 30 January 2024 shows Pakistan’s ranking on the CPI improved by seven points last year, after just 16 months of good governance of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) led by PML-N. Pakistan moved from 140 in 2022 to 133 in 2023 out of 180 countries.
The CPI is an index that ranks countries “by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.” The graph of Pakistan’s ranking from 2008 to 2023 shows how each government performed in their tenure.
During the Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) government from 2008 to 2013, Pakistan’s position on the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) declined by five points, from 134 to 139, indicating an increase in the public perception of corruption. The public perception improved significantly when the PML-N formed governments at the Centre, and in Punjab and Balochistan in 2013. Pakistan climbed 12 points from 139 to 127 on the CPI in just one year. The country’s ranking continued to improve and stood at 117 in 2017. The improvement would have continued had the PML-N mandate not been robbed in the 2018 election. When the PTI took charge of the government in 2018, Pakistan started its descent into corruption, progressively dropping 23 points on the index by 2022 and ranking 140th out of 180 countries, indicating that in public perception, corruption in Pakistan had increased significantly.
Ironically, the government of a party that built its entire narrative on discrediting its opponents as corrupt, whose leader used to quote TI reports in his speeches to prove his point, turned out to be the most corrupt in recent history.
The social media warriors of the PTI have always painted their rivals, particularly the PML-N, as corrupt, but these numbers speak of a different reality. Poor governance, weak accountability of public officials, and corruption scandals contributed to Pakistan’s systematic downfall during PTI rule.
It is ironic that the government of a party that built its entire narrative on discrediting its opponents as corrupt, whose leader used to quote TI reports in his speeches to prove his point, turned out to be the most corrupt in recent history.
KP Ehtesab Commission
When the PTI first formed its government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) in 2013, despite the pre-existing Anti-Corruption Establishment and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), it created a parallel provincial body named the Ehtesab Commission in 2014. The commission remained ineffective and failed to convict a single person in four years of its existence despite spending over Rs800 million. In 2018, when the PTI formed its government at the Centre, it abolished the Ehtesab Commission. Nobody ever questioned the PTI for weakening accountability mechanisms in the province and squandering Rs800 million of taxpayers’ money on the creation of an entity that failed to deliver any results.
BRT corruption
Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is a ‘flagship’ project of PTI that caused the exchequer a loss of billions of rupees. Construction on the BRT began in October 2017 with a planned completion within six months, coinciding with the general elections. However, the project encountered long delays, leading the Peshawar High Court (PHC) to instruct the National Accountability Bureau in July 2018 to investigate what it termed a “shady and shaky” project.
NAB’s preliminary findings on the matter were not made public but a January 2019 report by KP’s Provincial Inspection Team (PIT) on Peshawar’s BRT later found its way into the media. It states, “Havoc has been played with the public money through faulty planning and designing, negligence in the execution of work, and poor management of the project.” The report said that instead of facilitating the city traffic, it caused bottlenecks. The project’s cost escalated from Rs49.346 billion to Rs66.437 billion due to mismanagement and corruption. Instead of fixing the responsibility and accountability of corrupt officials in line with their party manifesto, the then-KP government decried some of the PIT findings and continued to defend this project, despite removing its top officials. Currently, NAB is investigating this case.
Sugar scandal
In April 2020, a Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) inquiry commissioned by the government found that the former PTI secretary general Jahangir Khan Tareen and then-federal minister for national food security Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar were among the main beneficiaries of the sugar crisis of 2020. First, the Economic Coordination Committee allowed the export of sugar, which left insufficient stocks within Pakistan and led to high sugar prices. Sugar mill owners profited from government subsidies on sugar exports, and again profited from price hikes in the local market. The government then imported sugar to meet the domestic shortfall. The FIA report did not mention why the government announced subsidies on sugar exports or who influenced the ECC to allow exports when sugar stocks were barely enough to meet domestic needs. Neither the beneficiaries nor the perpetrators of this scandal have been held accountable.
“The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government’s mishandling of wheat and sugar commodities cost the country over $520 million in imports, giving over Rs100 billion hit to the national exchequer and above all forcing consumers to bear the brunt by paying 50 per cent higher prices in 2020.” Express Tribune
Wheat scandal
Likewise, wheat prices started soaring throughout the country in early 2020. The crisis emerged because the government allowed wheat exports in 2018 and 2019, causing a shortage for domestic consumers. Like sugar, the government ordered wheat imports to meet the shortfall created by the government in the first place through exporting this commodity. According to a report by Express Tribune published on 1 January 2021, “The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government’s mishandling of wheat and sugar commodities cost the country over $520 million in imports, giving over Rs100 billion hit to the national exchequer and above all forcing consumers to bear the brunt by paying 50 per cent higher prices in 2020.” No one was held accountable.
LNG crisis
Another example of gross mismanagement and corruption by the PTI government concerns the import of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). The PML-N government first imported LNG at $8 per MMBtu from Qatar in 2016. Due to coronavirus-related lockdowns in 2020, LNG prices crashed below $2 per MMBtu internationally. It was an ideal time to aggressively enter into long-term oil and gas import contracts at low prices, but the PTI government failed to avail the opportunity. When the LNG prices started soaring internationally, the government kept dilly-dallying. Meanwhile, independent power producers used expensive diesel to produce electricity, causing an increase in electricity prices, which was unsustainable.
In July 2021, Bloomberg reported that Pakistan had made the priciest LNG purchase of four cargoes at $15 per Metric Million British Thermal Unit (MMBtu) to fuel power production. The same PTI government incarcerated former PML-N prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and his finance advisor, Miftah Ismail, for their alleged corruption in the 15-year LNG contract with Qatar. The story does not end here. In November 2021, the same PTI which questioned the PML-N government of corruption for its long term-LNG contract with Qatar at $8 per MMBtu, accepted an LNG cargo at the highest-ever price of $30.6 per MMBtu from Qatar Petroleum to avert a possible gas crisis in the upcoming peak winter months.
No one has ever investigated who blocked the government from entering into long-term contracts of cheap LNG during COVID lockdowns and orchestrating a cycle of inflation which heavily cost the consumers and the country. Who benefitted from expensive power production from diesel?
Money laundering
Perhaps the most damning corruption scandal of the PTI government is money laundering through Al-Qadir University Trust. NAB has alleged that PTI leader Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi secured land valued at billions of rupees from the prominent property tycoon Malik Riaz to purportedly build a university in return for laundering £190 million worth of assets and properties, which the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA) had seized in an investigation related to “dirty money” in December 2019.
It may be remembered that the Supreme Court had imposed a fine of 460 billion rupees on Malik Riaz in a separate case. Instead of depositing £190 million returned by NCA to the national exchequer, Imran Khan got his cabinet’s approval to present this money to the account set up by the Supreme Court to receive the imposed fine in the Bahria Town Case on Malik Riaz’s behalf. Currently, Imran Khan and his wife are being prosecuted in this case.
Toshakhana scandal
Toshakhana is a government department responsible for storing gifts presented to rulers, politicians, government officials, and functionaries by heads of state and other foreign dignitaries. According to regulations, all gifts must be surrendered to the department, but recipients have the option to purchase them by paying a percentage of their estimated value. Imran Khan made hefty profits by selling gifts he had bought from Toshakhana at paltry prices. He was convicted of corruption for not showing the sale proceeds of these gifts in the declaration of assets submitted to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
The PTI government caused immense harm to the country through its incompetence and corruption. It missed lucrative opportunities offered by worldwide COVID lockdowns. It rolled back the progress made in the energy sector and infrastructure development during the tenure of PML-N. It eroded Pakistan’s credibility internationally by declaring the country corrupt on international forums and reneging on its agreement with the International Monetary Fund. It harmed Pakistan’s relations with the US and other Western capitals by disseminating conspiracy theories about their interventions in our domestic affairs. The people of Pakistan are still reaping the whirlwind of the poor choices made by the PTI government.
The writer is the senior vice president of PML-N Punjab and former minister of education and youth affairs in Punjab.
