PTI leader Taimur Saleem Jhagra said judicial corruption and institutional distrust were barriers to capital investment in the country, while he assailed the government on Saturday following the release of the International Monetary Fund\u2019s (IMF) Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment (GCDA) report.<\/p>\n
The report, published earlier this week, highlighted persistent corruption challenges in Pakistan driven by systemic weaknesses across state institutions and demanded immediate initiation of a 15-point reform agenda to improve transparency, fairness and integrity.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a press conference today about the report in Islamabad with former Sindh governor Mohammad Zubair, Jhagra highlighted a portion of the report that said: \u201cThe judicial sector that is organisationally complex is not able to [reliably] enforce contracts [or protect property rights] due to problems with efficiency, antiquated laws and the integrity of judges and judicial personnel.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c[The report] also points out how capital investments in the country have been undermined by concerns over vulnerability to corruption of judicial institutions,\u201d said the PTI leader.<\/p>\n
\u201cA barrier for investment in Pakistan is that the investor is scared of the fact that your judicial institutions are corrupt,\u201d Jhagra said.<\/p>\n
He added that according to the IMF, the judiciary was also unable to play a role in the economy besides political issues and those related to justice in society, as distrust in the system drove investors and businessmen away.<\/p>\n
Speaking about the role of the National Accountability Bureau, he said the report criticised its structure and said anti-corruption efforts were constrained by \u201cheavy reliance on a single institution exposed to strong political influence\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen IMF is saying there is corruption in Pakistan, and IMF states that the institutions in Pakistan, meant to fight corruption, have no coordination, and their actions are influenced politically; do you accept that or not?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there is one thing that is written about the most, it is that everything is in the government\u2019s hands,\u201d said the former finance minister of KP.<\/p>\n
As per the IMF, \u201cstate domination extends to employment, where the state employs 72 per cent of individuals with formal jobs\u201d. In reference to this part, Jhagra said undue favours were inevitable when the state ran sectors that it should not.<\/p>\n
The IMF pointed out, as emphasised by Jhagra, that the country\u2019s sugar sector was a case study of how the intertwined relationship between economic and political elites and state regulators had combined to capture public benefits at deep cost to the populace.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirms in the sugar sector benefited from favourable government policies, subsidies and regulatory loopholes for decades, mainly due to the nexus between industry magnates and political leaders,\u201d as per the report.
\nJhagra also pointed out how the report criticised the role of the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), saying that it operated with \u201cuntested transparency and accountability provisions\u201d.<\/p>\n
Giving his own thoughts on the matter, Jhagra said the SIFC was brought about by the PML-N government to keep the stakeholders of the self-admitted current hybrid setup placated and content.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey knew that it would not bring a penny\u2019s worth of investment and neither have they tried.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jhagra said there were only two paths left after the report\u2019s release, one was for the government to begin working on the issues and solutions outlined or to give answers to the questions being raised since the revelations were made public.<\/p>\n
However, he quipped that the first was unlikely since \u201cthe government won\u2019t remain and the SIFC won\u2019t remain\u201d.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Zubair alleged that the IMF report was only disclosed by the government after \u201cimmense pressure\u201d from the institution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PTI leader Taimur Saleem Jhagra said judicial corruption and institutional distrust were barriers to capital investment in the country, while he assailed the government on Saturday following the release of the International Monetary Fund\u2019s (IMF) Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment (GCDA) report. The report, published earlier this week, highlighted persistent corruption challenges in Pakistan driven […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13580,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13579"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13581,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13579\/revisions\/13581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}