ISLAMABAD:
Pakistan’s ranking on the global corruption index has fallen slightly to 136th out of 182 countries, according to Transparency International (TI), which also listed Islamabad among nations considered dangerous for journalists investigating corruption.
The 2025 report covers 182 countries, an addition of two more territories compared to a year ago, which also contributed to a one-spot drop in Pakistan’s global position in the index.
Despite the drop in ranking, Pakistan’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) score improved marginally from 27 to 28 in 2025. However, the country remains grouped with nations perceived as highly corrupt, such as Bolivia and Iraq. The score is well below Pakistan’s recent best score of 33 in 2018.
TI’s flagship annual report comes days after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) claimed recoveries of 11.5 trillion rupees ($41 billion) between 2023 and 2025, more than double Pakistan’s official foreign exchange reserves of $16 billion.
The CPI measures perceived corruption in the public sector on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 indicates very corrupt and 100 represents very clean.
For context, India scored 39 points with a ranking of 91, Bangladesh 24 with 150 and Afghanistan 16 with 169.
TI noted that small fluctuations in scores are more significant than changes in ranking, as rankings can be influenced by the performance of other countries.
The report also comments on the plight of journalists investigating corruption stories.
“When journalists are attacked or killed for investigating corruption, power cannot be effectively held accountable and corruption tends to worsen,” the report says. Since 2012, in non-conflict areas around the world, 829 journalists have been killed, he added.
The report highlights that 150 journalists were killed while covering stories related to corruption, five of them in 2025. “More than 90% of these murders occurred in countries with a CPI below 50, including Brazil, India, Mexico, Pakistan and Iraq, which are particularly dangerous for journalists reporting on corruption,” TI stated.
He added that the CPI 2025 shows that corruption remains a serious threat in all parts of the world, although there are limited signs of progress. Leaders must act to address abuses of power and the broader factors driving this decline, such as the rollback of democratic checks and balances and attacks on independent civil society, the report said.
Pakistan also recently released the ‘Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment’ report under pressure from the IMF. The IMF report outlines a sorry state of affairs, as the global lender has called on Islamabad to introduce short- to long-term measures to address corruption and poor governance, including improving the rule of law and the judicial system.
NAB has recently claimed in its annual performance report that anti-corruption directly or indirectly recovered a whopping Rs 6.2 trillion from corrupt elements in the last one year. He further stated that direct and indirect recoveries of corruption proceeds amounted to Rs 11.5 trillion in the last three years alone.
Such a high level of recoveries of Rs 11.5 trillion suggests the prevailing corruption in Pakistan and also authenticates the 136th rank in the global index.
According to details provided by NAB to the media, the recoveries were made by recovering land encroached upon by the State and other organisations, as well as cash. These included the recovery of three million acres of encroached state and forest lands, valued at approximately Rs 6 trillion.
NAB Sukkur reclaimed 1.63 million acres of land worth Rs 3.73 trillion. It was unclear who assessed the land values or what methodology was used. NAB Balochistan reportedly recovered 1.02 million acres worth Rs 1.37 trillion, while NAB Multan recovered 330,000 acres valued at Rs 654 billion, along with 51 kanals of state land worth Rs 29.4 billion in Islamabad.
