Daily Times

Islamabad Chamber of Small Traders on Saturday said the government should follow the Chinese anti-corruption model to eradicate corruption and pave way for rapid national development.

The government should study the relevant laws of different countries and dissolve all the dysfunctional anti-corruption departments to establish a new super agency having a mandate to question any person or department, it said.

An effective agency to fight corruption will prove more beneficial than the China Pakistan Economic Corridor and it is more important than making nuclear weapons or any other thing, Islamabad Chamber of Small Traders Patron Shahid Rasheed Butt said.

He said that the conviction rate of Federal Investigation Agency in financial crimes is only 6.6 percent while National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had ensured the conviction of 112 persons out of over 25,000 applications.

The plea bargain system of NAB continues to encourage corruption while we also have anti-bribery bodies recovering a fraction of their budget pushing Pakistan on 106th number among 113 countries on an international index, he added.

Shahid Rasheed Butt said that the conviction rate in Malaysia stands at 80 percent, its 84 percent in Hong Kong, 97 percent in Singapore and 99 percent in China and that is the reason behind Beijing’s phenomenal growth.

Published in Daily Times, September 23^rd 2018.