What purpose does NAB serve?
LAHORE: This is with reference to the decision by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to reach a plea bargain deal with Mushtaq Raisani, a former finance secretary of Balochistan, whom it had accused of corruption to the tune of Rs40 billion. They have accepted Mushtaq Raisani’s request to surrender two billion rupees in return for a clean chit, as if he and his accomplices never committed any irregularities. Corruption was a stigma in Quaid-e-Azam’s Pakistan but it has been a merit in the post-Ayub Khan, Ziaul Haq, General (retd) Pervez Musharraf, Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif eras.
This reminds me of a definition of corruption given to me by a former bureaucrat serving in the income tax department, who chose to seek premature retirement and now owns factories and prime real estate in addition to property abroad. This gentleman, who is a member of elite clubs, told me, “pilfering the state of funds, et cetera, by a serving bureaucrat or any other public office holder is not corruption.” When I asked him to elaborate, this wise man stated that corruption is committed when an individual robs another individual or deprives him of cash. How correct and realistic this redefined version of the perks and privileges of public offices is can be gauged by the ground realities that exist in Pakistan.
Instead of wasting the already depleted national exchequer by creating financial regulatory agencies, corruption should be redefined. What purpose does NAB serve when not a single individual accused of high profile corruption involving billions has ever been imprisoned and all his moveable and immovable properties seized?
Malik Tariq Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, December 24th, 2016.
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