Delivering a public lecture on ‘Crimes and their Victims in the Developing Economies’ on Monday, Jaamdar said lack of transparency in the projects, whether concerned with road, power or other infrastructure, made people the victims even though they were not connected to them directly.

“There is no accountability for the calculation of cost and returns of a project. There is no transparency, costs are inflated and there is no way to establish the rating for services. This makes it very easy to siphon off funds. So people end up paying more for projects than they are really worth,” he said.

While noting that PPP projects were essential and could be very effective if the process was transparent, he said unless the rating process was revealed to the public, they would end up being victims.