Rai Manzoor Nasir, Secretary of the Punjab Cooperative Board for Liquidation, has been named Pakistan’s first ‘Integrity Idol’, winning 7,000 out of 20,000 votes cast in a competition run by the American NGO Accountability Lab.
Nasir has clamped down on corruption in the land registry, firing 30 officials, and making himself directly available (on his land and cell phone, as well as in person at mosques and other public places) to anyone offered a bribe.
The competition started in Nepal in 2015, where the first winner was District Education Officer Gyan Mani Nepal. He had also offered school pupils his personal phone number, asking them to text him if their teachers failed to appear for work.
So what?
The cost of corruption in Pakistan has been estimated at more than Rs12 billion (roughly USD114 million) a day.
The competition shows the potential of campaigns inspired by TV to scale more sustainable approaches to leadership, by building support networks around individuals and the values they represent.
Accountability Lab also runs an Incubator programme for young civil leaders, offering training, network building and seed funding to build effective tools for accountability. It also operates in Liberia and Afghanistan.
— By Anna Simpson
Sources
https://apolitical.co/pakistan-celebrates-first-integrity-idol/
As it appeared on Medium.