Pakistan’s CPI 2025 Score Exposes Accountability Deficit

News Desk 

Islamabad: Pakistan’s performance in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2025 reflects a mixed picture, with most international assessments pointing to stagnation rather than meaningful improvement.

Pakistan scored 27 out of 100 in CPI 2025 and ranked 136th out of 182 countries, compared with a score of 27 and a ranking of 135th out of 180 countries in 2024. 

Transparency International calculates the CPI using multiple independent data sources that assess different dimensions of public-sector corruption. For Pakistan, eight international sources were used in the 2025 index.

Among these, only one source showed an improvement over the previous year. The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project upgraded Pakistan’s score, raising its rating from 14 in 2024 to 19 in 2025.

The V-Dem index aggregates corruption perceptions across the public sector, including the executive, legislature and judiciary. The higher score suggests a relative improvement in perceived corruption at the political and institutional level. 

• CPI score unchanged at 27/100, while Pakistan’s rank slipped to 136th out of 182 countries in 2025, compared with 135th out of 180 in 2024.
• Only 1 of 8 CPI data sources showed improvement, as V-Dem raised Pakistan’s score from 14 to 19, signalling limited political-level gains.
• 2 of 8 sources recorded deterioration: World Economic Forum score fell from 33 to 32, and World Justice Project score declined from 26 to 25.
• 5 of 8 indicators showed zero year-on-year change, highlighting stagnation in enforcement, accountability and institutional controls.
• Business, legal and governance risks remain elevated, with unchanged scores from EIU, World Bank CPIA, PRS, Global Insights and Bertelsmann indices.

However, this positive movement was not reinforced by enforcement or rule-of-law indicators, limiting its impact on Pakistan’s overall CPI standing.

In contrast, two international assessments recorded a decline in Pakistan’s performance. The World Economic Forum’s Executive Opinion Survey reduced Pakistan’s score from 33 to 32, reflecting worsening perceptions among business executives regarding bribery in imports and exports, public contracts, licenses, tax payments, judicial decisions and diversion of public funds. The decline points to growing concerns over informal payments and misuse of public resources.

Similarly, the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index lowered Pakistan’s score from 26 to 25. This index evaluates whether officials in the executive, judiciary, legislature, police and military refrain from using public office for private gain. 

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The reduced score indicates persistent weaknesses in accountability and enforcement, with perceptions that abuses of authority are not consistently punished.

The remaining five sources reported no year-on-year change, underscoring institutional stagnation.

 These include the Bertelsmann Stiftung Transformation Index, which found no improvement in the prosecution of corrupt officials or the state’s capacity to contain corruption, and the Economist Intelligence Unit, which highlighted ongoing weaknesses in public financial controls, civil-service professionalism and judicial independence.

Other unchanged assessments came from Global Insights Country Risk Ratings, pointing to steady levels of bribery and corruption risk for businesses; the PRS International Country Risk Guide, which continued to flag concerns over political patronage, nepotism and opaque links between politics and business; and the World Bank’s Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA), which showed no progress in executive accountability, transparency or resistance to state capture.

Transparency International noted that the CPI 2025 rankings cover 182 countries, up from 180 in 2024, placing Pakistan near the lower end of the global index and highlighting the need for sustained reforms to address corruption and strengthen accountability mechanisms. As published in The News.