I wish our general public would become wise enough to understand the difference between the reality and the pretext
SUKKUR: This letter is with reference to the article by Ayesha Siddiqa, “Contextualising the NGO issue” (June 18). Her analysis is absolutely valid. She is quite right in assessing that our civil bureaucracy has thrived in cahoots with the NGO supremos and vice versa and that successive governments have emboldened them to go unchecked.
It seems that the whole system has become too corrupt to be trusted. Still, I have to make an addition to her analysis that some civil bureaucrats join NGOs after taking leave only because they wish to earn an honest penny. This is not entirely untrue because we haven’t seen, for instance, any person from the Pakistan Administrative Service or the Custom Group of Central Superior Service preferring to take charge of NGOs. Only those from the railways, postal and similar groups are willing to jump on the bandwagon to join NGOs in order to enjoy better privileges than what their current positions have to offer in government jobs.
It is also true that with a few honourable exceptions, most NGOs are as corrupt as government departments. Initially, they come up with a semblance of public-spirited cliche, but once they become too powerful, they act blind, deaf and dumb to the needs of society and their responsibility towards them. I wish our general public would become wise enough to understand the difference between the reality and the pretext, faked by the self-righteous NGOs and bureaucrats.
Riaz Mahar
Published in The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2015.
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