Corruption hits at foundation of economic activity: LCCI President

Lahore 01 September 2021(Online): The Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry (LCCI) and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) held a joint session on the theme of anti-corruption and character building at the LCCI.
The Chamber President, Vice President, Director NAB, Assistant Director and experts from various sectors spoke on the occasion. The experts said that corruption is an evil which hits all the sectors hard including economy and public interests. It discourages local and foreign investments economic activities and leads to poverty.
LCCI President Mian Tariq Misbah said that being the premier business support organization of the country, Lahore Chamber has always advocated for strong measures for making Pakistan a corruption free country and acknowledge the importance and efforts of NAB as Pakistan’s apex anti-corruption organization.
He said that through this event, the representatives of business community will be made aware about the adverse impact of corruption, particularly on the economic progress of an emerging economy like Pakistan.
The LCCI President said that we should be concerned over the fact that Pakistan is ranked considerably low on the Corruption Perceptions Index prepared by Transparency International. Our country is consistently slipping down from the last three years in this Index. Pakistan stood at 117th place in 2018 whereas in 2019 and 2020, it further went down to 120th and 124th places respectively out of 180 countries. This low ranking implies that Pakistan is not making sufficient progress towards tackling the menace of corruption.
He said that at present, there is a wave of curbing corruption according to the vision of our Prime Minister and this drive is gaining momentum with the passage of time. We fully endorse this drive and expect that significant measures will be taken to eliminate corruption through a well-rounded approach of awareness, prevention and enforcement.
The LCCI President said that the private sector’s perspective about the corruption is quite clear. We believe that corruption hits at the foundation of economic activity. The business community views the corruption in the state organs is damaging to the growth of economy. Administrative reforms are imperative, if the corruption in the system has to be rooted out.
He said that the objectives against corruption can only be achieved if NAB and other concerned departments both at national and provincial levels work in harmony.
Director NAB Syed Muhammad Husnain said that the NAB has the mission to eliminate the corruption through enforcement of the laws and awareness in the society. While elaborating the functions and operations of NAB, he shed light on the different types of white collar crimes happening in Pakistan.
He briefed the participants about the measures that NAB is taking to bring-back hard earned money of the masses. He said that corruption means misdoings and misuse of authority for the vested interests. He said that NAB was aimed to become a credible, effective, efficient, and dynamic anti-corruption organization to create corruption-free society.