Corruption Culture in Pakistan

Corruption is a scourge that has badly affected the quality of governance, state of the economy and social justice available to the people. Corruption is defined as the misuse of entrusted power for private gains. It is of different types. It is petty, grand and political. The petty corruption is usually linked with the lower salary employees and generally considered as facilitating payments, whereas, the grand corruption is associated with the high level bureaucracy. However, the political corruption as name indicates is related to the politician. They usually involve in this type corruption in order to maintain their status quo. The corruption varies in the rate of its presence, therefore in this regard the incidence of corruption may be rare, widespread or systemic. The rare corruption is easy to identify and control than widespread. Whereas, the systemic corruption becomes a way of life and it is very difficult to overcome. The corruption is universal, however, its existence varies in rate of occurrence. Since the inception of Pakistan, the country has witnessed of the rampant corruption. Many governments in general and the governments in decade of 1990 in particular has become the victim of the widespread corruption and corrupt practices. In a recent survey conducted by the Transparency International, Pakistan ranks lowered from 42th most corrupt country to 34th country in the world.

Islam explicitly condemns the existence of corruption in every form. Hazart Muhammad (PBUH) declared that; "Damned is the bribe giver (or corruptor)-the bribe taker (the corrupted) and he who goes between them".

Quaid-i- Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah has strongly condemned the presence of corruption. He avowed a strict action against such mal practices and their doer.

The root causes of the rampant corruption in the country are lack of effective accountability, poor performance on the part of respective institutions, unchecked and unlimited power of feudal for vested interests. The presence of corruption and corrupt practices play a pivotal role to engender the deteriorate law and order, shackle the economy which leads to the inflation, unemployment and poverty in the country. Its presence distracts a man from ethics, humanely attitude, tradition and civic laws. The pervasive corruption in the country can be checked by applying certain measures. The government should ascertain the rule of law; it means equal application of law, equal protection by the law and equality before law, effective and impartial accountability, active role of media to eradicate the corruption are the few factors which can play an active to diminish the corruption.