How can mega projects be launched without following a due process of checks and balances?
LAHORE: This is regarding Federal Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid’s recent statement that, the “government will not let the accountability process undermine the country’s progress”. It seems that ‘progress’ is defined as the thriving of affluent traders and vested interests. Funds, on the other hand, are depleted.
How can mega projects be launched without following a due process of checks and balances? Governments are elected to serve people, not vested or self-interests.
All over the developed and civilised world, strict accountability for financial and ethical irregularities has resulted in effective governance, while sufficient state funds collected through direct taxes. These, in turn, are available to invest in education, health, security, an independent judiciary, powerful and transparent regulatory controls and research in technological advances.
It is in the Third World, where corruption thrives and state sovereignty is often compromised at the altar of greed, that the gap between the rich and the poor widens, with the state absolving itself of constitutional responsibilities, preferring to promote individual interests, while numerous accountability institutions protect vultures instead of protecting state assets and the national exchequer.
The Quaid’s vision of a modern welfare state and the Holy Prophet’s (PBUH) teachings about the accountability of the ruling elite, are no longer the guiding principles for those who wield power. We are faced with the choice of whether we will allow men like General (retd) Pervez Musharraf, Shaukat Aziz, Asif Zardari or Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to decide our fate or whether we will stand up to get equal rights and equal opportunities as guaranteed to us by the Constitution, which also guarantees the applicability of laws to all citizens without discrimination. Pakistan was not created by our founding fathers to replace the British Raj and the East India Company by men, who when out of power, prefer to live abroad and pay all due taxes in those countries where their assets and families have relocated. It is due to our failure to enforce strict accountability of the ruling elite that the criminal black economy is expanding, while the documented economy is shrinking. Consequently, terrorism thrives because young men deprived of education and employment make easy prey.
Malik Tariq Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, February 24th, 2016.
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