Over Rs 8,500 bn corruption has taken place during Gilani's tenure: Transparency

Islamabad, Feb 6 (ANI): Pakistan has lost over 8,500 billion rupees in corruption, tax evasion and bad governance during the last four years of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's tenure, Transparency International Pakistan (TIP) has claimed.

The News quoted TIP advisor Adil Gillani as saying that the real impact of corruption in the country's economy is far more than what is estimated.

He believes Pakistan could become self-dependent in terms of money if it effectively checks corruption and ensures good governance.

It is believed that the four years of the present regime under Gilani had been the worst in terms of corruption and bad governance in the country's history. Past records of corruption were broken and Pakistan started rising in the ranks of the most corrupt nations of the world.

There has been no check on corruption as the anti-corruption institutions like the National Accountability Bureau and the Federal Investigation Agency (FBI) have reportedly been favouring the corrupt, instead of dealing with corruption.

TIP representative Gilani, who too has been targeted by the government for producing reports on corruption, explained that the TIP pointed out corruption of 390 billion rupees in 2008, 450 billion rupees in 2009, 825 billion rupees in 2010 and 1,100 billion rupees in 2011 under the present regime. The total of these identified cases of corruption is 2,765 billion rupees.

In addition, he claimed that Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh had confirmed corruption in the FBR of over 500 billon rupees per year.

The Auditor General of Pakistan pointed out 315 billion rupees corruption in 2010, while the Public Accounts Committee said it had recovered 115 billion rupees in 30 months till 2011. (ANI)