Privacy, tampering and the state

All governments have secrets and some of them essential to the maintenance of order and stability

The Panama Papers have released a veritable Pandora’s box of troubles for both individuals and the institutions of state. Questions are being asked of people normally considering themselves beyond question, and institutions are being required to be accountable in ways they have never been brought to book before. Some of the answers that the interrogators are receiving are found to be falsehoods as in the case of papers submitted to the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) by the First Daughter, and in other equally troubling instances there has been falsification of records — tampering — prior to documentary submissions. There is also a determined effort to conceal information from investigatory bodies, and the latest incident where the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has refused to cooperate with a parliamentary panel investigating the tax records of the ruling family, is illustrative of the opacity and deceit that prevails.

All governments have secrets, some of them essential to the maintenance of order and stability, but in parliamentary democracies, and Pakistan professes to be one, parliament is the body to which all are accountable. Parliamentary bodies such as investigatory committees are there to ask the hard questions and expect answers. They are public hearings unless state security is involved, and there is no suggestion that state security is an issue in the many threads there are to the Panama Papers affair.

The FBR is the second organisation accused of record-tampering, with the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) currently in custody accused of record falsification. The FBR and the SECP are pillars of the state, and as such should be beyond reproach. That they are shown to not be is unsurprising given the endemic corruption at every level of governance. Those involved are not the minnows; they are the big fish, the men of power and influence. Their willingness to lie and cheat and try to evade detection and culpability fits with the culture of impunity that they themselves have fostered for decades. Pakistan in the future may find much to thank the Panama Papers for, not least dragging some very dishonest people into the light.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 28^th, 2017.

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