Unfinished agenda: After Eid, Senate panel to take up graft in govt depts

Bureaucracy unwilling to share anti-graft measures with Special Oversight Committee

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Special Oversight Committee will take up its agenda of scrutinising corruption in government departments soon after the Eidul Azha holidays, panel chairman Mohammad Javed Abbasi said on Sunday.

“We will try to expose the officials involved in corruption…the problem needs to be fixed for a better society,” he told The Express Tribune in a telephonic conversation.

Apparently senior bureaucrats from different ministries and divisions continue to shy away from sharing details of corruption in their offices with the oversight panel set up last year.

The Special Oversight Committee had prepared a 51-point document on eradicating corruption and circulated it in government departments. Besides, it also asked them to submit a compliance report in this regard.

However, the bureaucracy gave a clean chit to its machinery. Committee members and chairman Abbasi were surprised when in a meeting held in April, none of the departments shared substantive measures against malpractices and embezzlements.



Interestingly, during the meeting, a 300-plus-page dossier presented from all organisations concerned contained nothing in connection with the committee’s suggestion, instead it repeatedly mentioned that the document had been “well received, (and proposals) will be implemented in letter and spirit.”

Instead every secretary and head of the departments, present in that meeting had one point in common ¬ “we have our own rules and provisions for curbing corrupt practices.”

The oversight committee tried its best to make the top officials share details of action taken against officers involved in corrupt practices, but nothing could be obtained from them.

The most glaring example was set by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) chairman, who claimed that there had been no case of corruption in PTA in the past 20 years. That was a surprise for everyone sitting in the meeting. “We do not have public dealings so that is why there is no corruption in PTA,” he stated.

The then establishment division’s secretary Nadeem Asif chipped in and came to the rescue of the officials and stated that they were complying with the Senate’s recommendations and the process was under way.

However, nothing happened since that meeting and the committee started taking other agenda items in their following meetings.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 12^th, 2016.