More than 90 per cent of Pakistanis believe that inflation and price hikes are the highest in the PTI government's tenure compared to previous governments, according to a nationwide perceptions survey by Transparency International released on Wednesday.

According to the results of the National Corruption Perception Survey 2021, 92.9pc of Pakistanis "consider inflation and price hike to be the highest in the current PTI government (2018-2021), compared to 4.6pc in the PML-N government (2013-2018) and 2.5pc in PPP government (2008-2013)".

In addition, 85.9pc of the people surveyed said their income had shrunk during the last three years. When asked about the reasons behind inflation and unemployment, 50.6pc of them cited government incompetence, 23.3pc said corruption, 16.6pc said lack of policy implementation and 9.6pc blamed undue interference of politicians in government affairs.

A majority of the survey respondents — 85.9pc — believed the federal government's self-accountability was unsatisfactory.

Moreover, 66.8pc of them perceived the government's accountability drive to be partial.

Police perceived as most corrupt

According to the survey, Pakistanis perceived police as the most corrupt sector (41.4pc), followed by judiciary (17.4pc) and contracting or tendering (10.3pc), citing weak accountability, the greed of powerful people and low salaries as the main reasons behind corruption in the country.

The list of public services for which people had to pay bribes, according to the corruption perception survey, was topped by contracts of roads (59.8pc), cleanliness and garbage collection (13.8pc), access to water (13.3pc) and drainage system (13.1pc).

When asked about measures that could reduce corruption, 41pc of Pakistanis called for harsher punishments, 34.6pc said accountability of public officers by expediting the National Accountability Bureau's handling of corruption cases while 25.3pc said a complete ban on those convicted in corruption from holding public office could reduce corruption.

"A significant [part of the] population (81.4pc) has declined that they willingly pay bribe and likewise it was a clear perception that bribes are rather extorted from the public through tactics such as inaction or delay in the provision of public services," the report highlighting the results stated.

Local governments

The survey also looked at people's perceptions about local governments, especially in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Centre's measures to combat it.

Around 47.8pc of Pakistanis surveyed said the government's campaigns to create awareness about the pandemic could have been launched in an "effective" manner if elected representatives of local bodies were present.

A large segment of the respondents — 72.8pc — also perceived that corruption at the grassroots level had increased in the public sector due to the absence of local governments.

The report stated that 89.1pc of Pakistanis said that they did not pay any bribe to a government official during the federal government's pandemic-related relief efforts.

According to Transparency International Pakistan, the survey sought responses from 1,600 people from four cities each in every province of the country.

Pakistan ranked 124 out of 180 countries — dropping four spots over last year — in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) by Transparency International released in January this year, an annual index that ranks countries based on perceptions of public sector corruption.