A drubbing for NADRA

There was a time not so long ago when the National Database Regulatory Authority (NADRA) was held up as an exemplar for everything that was right about Pakistan. Effective, efficient, well managed and with a product that was marketed and sold well overseas. Today that is a reputation that is tarnished, and the Senate Standing Committee on Interior has taken the organisation to task for issuing identification cards to thousands of illegal immigrants and that no official has been sacked or disciplined for this. Some of the numbers were startling — there are 174,184 illegal immigrants in the NADRA system and given the national concern about infiltration by terrorist and extremist groups that has to be perceived as deeply troubling.

The Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) is the passport to just about everything in the Pakistan of today. It is a trusted document and holders of CNIC move freely, open bank accounts, buy and sell land and property, gain entrance to government buildings and a host of other benefits. It is virtually impossible to lead a trouble-free life without a CNIC and NADRA has now placed this vital document in the hands of people that by its own admission are here illegally. Most of the cards wrongly issued were to people in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa at 42,864, and were gained by the applicants claiming falsely their connections to Pakistani families.

Members of the Committee were deeply critical, saying that whilst poor citizens were being blacklisted the wealthy got their cards ‘cleared’ by payment to corrupt officials; and that NADRA bylaws were ‘toothless’ and needed amendment in order to punish those that flouted or bent the law for their own gain. They also noted the decline in NADRA efficacy at what they termed ‘interference by the interior ministry…for political motives.’

In doing so they rightly note the toxic effect that the politicisation of entities such as NADRA has upon them, and it is an effect that can be seen in almost every government agency or entity. Once again politics are seen — allegedly, and doubtless the interior ministry would deny this — as the worm in the apple. We were once proud of NADRA, but sadly no more.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 10^th, 2017.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.