ISLAMABAD:Corruption recoveries totaling Rs5.3 trillion in just two years represent only a fraction of the true cost to Pakistan’s economy, the International Monetary Fund said Wednesday in a scorching assessment that found corruption “persistent and corrosive” at every level of government.
After holding back for almost three months, the Ministry of Finance released the Governance and Corruption Diagnostics Report to meet the IMF’s condition to release it before the meeting of the executive board for the approval of the $1.2 billion worth two loan tranches.
The Rs5.3 trillion figure added up from January 2023 to December 2024.
In the 186-page report, the global lender said that there was no reliable measure to quantify scale of corruption in Pakistan but said that “those costs can be gleaned from the recovery of corruption-related assets”. The IMF said the NAB recoveries in just two years are just one of the ways to scale the depth of corruption. The money obtained through asset recoveries by NAB reflects only one element in total costs of corruption to the economy, it added.
