Pakistan flood impact exacerbated by corruption

The floods that have devastated parts of Pakistan over the last few weeks are not the worst in the country's history, according to experts interviewed by the Express Tribune.
"Water levels in Sindh rose to similar high floods in 1992 and 1976 but the impact was not as huge. This time, flooding has been exacerbated only due to decades of government corruption and neglect”, says irrigation expert Idrees Rajput, a former member of the Sindh government.
Another expert, Arshad H Abbasi, says that Pakistan's Federal Flood Commission has misused funds and approved and executed water control projects only on paper.
The article notes that in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's worst-hit districts, Nowshera and Charsadda, the FFC claims it carried out projects worth Rs27.3 million in 2007-8 and Rs53 million in 2008-9, which were allegedly 92 per cent complete before the floods. However, local people say they cannot even identify the projects on the ground, despite the existence of official documentation. The chief minister in the Punjab has also recently inspected bogus projects in South Punjab.
The FFC told the Express Tribune that it is not an executing body, but simply provides funds to the provinces based on paperwork. "Our role is to facilitate the provinces, approve their schemes and provide funds to the respective irrigation department officials in each province”, FFC chairman Zarar Aslam told the Express Tribune. He said the FFC had no funds for monitoring the implementation of projects.
However, his organisation has come in for criticism with allegations from Transparency International Pakistan that 60-70 per cent of more than $1 billion in foreign aid for flood defence work has been embezzled. However Syed Adil Gilani, chairman of TIP, said last week that fear of misuse of funds should not halt humanitarian aid to Pakistan.

Corruption increasing in Pakistan

Seventy percent of people questioned as part of a 205-page survey by Transparency International in Pakistan say that the present government is more corrupt than its predecessors.
TI's National Corruption Perception Survey 2010 says that overall corruption has increased by 11.37 percent from Rs195 billion in 2009 to Rs233 billion in in the last year. Punjab is the only province where provincial government is rated to be cleaner than previous provincial governments and Khyber-Pakhtunkwa is rated the most corrupt.
Police and the power sector are ranked as the two most corrupt sectors, followed by land administration. In fact the police have been judged to be the most corrupt sector for the last four years in a row.
Corruption in the judiciary, education and local government sectors has also increased compared to 2009, whereas Customs and Taxation are ranked the least corrupt.
Syed Adil Gilani, chairman of TI Pakistan, said that corruption is the root cause of poverty, illiteracy, terrorism, shortage of electricity, food and the lack of governance in Pakistan. He said the most corrupt sector is tendering, which eats at least 40 percent of the Pakistan's development budget.