Azma Bokhari says only Punjab is acting rather than talking on corruption; a national survey last year found Punjab residents the most likely to see police as the most corrupt institution.
LAHORE:Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari said on Friday that Punjab was the only province taking concrete action against corruption rather than just making statements, pointing to body cameras, CCTV monitoring and internal accountability in every department.
In a statement, Bokhari said the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) was working as a transparent institution and that strict departmental action was being taken against corrupt officials across the provincial government. On Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif’s orders, she said, police, Punjab Emergency Services and other departments were using body cameras, and CCTV was being used to monitor government offices and preserve digital evidence.
“There is no room for favouritism or bribery in Punjab,” she said, adding that corruption would not be tolerated at any level.
The statement follows a campaign the government has run since late August. The chief minister ordered the police chief to weed out corrupt officers and set deadlines for body cameras. In early September the province set up a secret anti-corruption cell and launched helpline 1350, and Express Tribune reported that 54 officials had been dismissed or suspended, with the food department hit hardest.
Punjab Police said 791 personnel faced action over corruption in 13 days. In mid-September, training for police body-worn cameras was completed, and the cameras are being linked to Safe City systems in 43 cities, starting in Lahore. Earlier this year, the chief minister ordered body cameras for the Punjab Enforcement and Regulatory Authority (PERA) after complaints of bribery and harassment by its field staff.
Public opinion has some way to go. Transparency International Pakistan’s National Corruption Perception Survey 2025, carried out in September last year, found that 34 percent of Punjab respondents named the police as the most corrupt institution, the highest of any province. Seventy percent in Punjab said provincial governments were more corrupt than local governments, also the highest share. Nationally, 77 percent said they were dissatisfied with government efforts to curb corruption.
The same survey recorded a six-point improvement in perceptions of police compared with 2023, and two-thirds of respondents said they had not been forced to pay a bribe, which supporters of the reforms cite as progress. The survey measures perception, not actual corruption, and was conducted before the latest crackdown began, so the next round will be the first independent test of the government’s campaign.
Bokhari said Punjab’s performance was being recognised internationally, without giving examples, and accused “certain unemployed individuals” of working day and night to malign the province in pursuit of jobs. She said that for such people, the performance of Punjab and the chief minister had become a source of constant frustration. She did not name anyone.
The remarks echo her earlier instruction to counter disinformation about Punjab with facts.
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