ISLAMABAD, Feb 10: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Mohammad Siddiqul Farooque on Friday said anybody wishing end to corruption must first purge the government corridors of black sheep.

He said corruption was so rampant that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had to make a ‘fresh pledge’ to eradicate it. He was commenting on Minister of State for Overseas Pakistan Tariq Azeem’s admission that influential people were plundering national wealth, and the prime minister’s new declaration to eliminate corruption was encouraging.

Mr Farooque said restoration of the Constitution and cleansing of anti-corruption bodies was also essential to end corruption.

President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz have been claiming for the last four years that corruption at higher levels had been totally wiped out, but the fresh pledge indicated that past claims were wrong, he said.

He said corruption could be wiped out only when the rulers had clean hands, but majority of the present rulers were themselves corrupt and turncoats holding fake degrees.

He said anti-corruption bodies, including NAB, were being used for political vengeance, and internal corruption and incompetence had putrefied them.