Fighting governmental corruption in Pakistan: An evaluation of anti-corruption strategies

Abstract

Anti-corruption efforts are required where corruption prevails and Pakistan is a developing country that is facing the menace of corruption to a considerable degree. According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) for 2019, Pakistan is ranked as 120th out of 180 countries. With this in view, this study aims to ascertain the opinion of policy professionals working at various policy institutes in Pakistan regarding the effectiveness of 26 different anti-corruption strategies by means of a self-administered questionnaire. The results show slight differences between the mean scores for anti-corruption strategies, depicting a certain level of effectiveness for each strategy. Harsher punishments for corrupt persons and legal protection for whistleblowers informing about persons involved in corruption are the strategies that had the highest mean scores of 4.07 and 4.04 respectively. The typology “Political, legal and judicial strategies” was the most effective, with the highest mean value of 3.90. A holistic approach is required in Pakistan to eradicate corruption from governmental offices.