Prevention of corruption and corrupt practices

The pandemic of corruption and corrupt practices has been eating into the social fabric of our society and has remained the main rogue of the country. Merit, competency, justice, rights and economic and social development have been the main casualties of this menacing ill. Elimination of corruption is stated to be the hallmark of good governance. Governance in turn is said to be all about efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, accountability and rule of law. However, no governments so far have been able to run its affairs on the basis of these essentials.

This is why Pakistan is languishing far below on the global index of preventing corruption – at 120th among 180 countries, according to Transparency International’s 2019 Corruption Perception Index (CPI). The phenomenon is not new: the country has been fraught with the malaise ever since its birth. Action under the Election Bodies Disqualified Order (EBDO), firing of 303 officers under Yahya Khan, and then of 1,300 under the period of Zulifikar Ali Bhutto, were all done to get rid of corruption. Moreover, the political history of Pakistan is seized with the old and perpetual problem of corruption which has always been the central theme of the charge-sheet, whenever an elected government is dismissed.

All along, curbing corruption, and fair and neat governance have remained on top of the agenda of all political parties. A number of governments have been sent packing on the charges of corruption, though contested by political circles. Despite all this, corruption has not gone.

The Ehtesab Bureau was launched during the second tenure of Nawaz Sharif which mutated into the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) during the Musharraf era, and continues to operate to this day. The avowed objective of NAB has been to take effective measures for the detection, investigation, prosecution and speedy disposal of cases involving corruption, corrupt practices, misuse or abuse of power or authority, misappropriation of property, receipt of kickbacks and commissions and for matters connected and ancillary or incidental thereto. The chairman NAB has time and again expressed determination to purge the country of corruption.

Good governance is not possible without eliminating corruption. Good governance is the aspiration of all, but the question is: why are we lingering too low on the corruption index? Why is corruption seeping into the very foundation of our society? Most of the studies on governance with respect to Pakistan have remained focused on its association with corruption and/or its impact on economic growth and development. For instance, Umbreen Javaid, a prolific writer and professor at Punjab University, contends that all layers of society have been infected with corruption. This includes public, private, political, judicial, commercial and even religions.

The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) report based on six aggregate governance indicators – Voice and Accountability; Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism; Government Effectiveness; Regulatory Quality; Rule of Law; and Control of Corruption – also throws light on the issue of governance in Pakistan. According to its graph, the percentage rank in 1998 was 15.9, the highest was 27.3 in 2003, while it remained at 21.6 in 2014.

The World Data Info also shows that the Corruption Perceptions Index for the public sector in Pakistan has 68 points with the country ranking at 122 for 2019.

The spectre of corruption is not only pervasive in the public sector but also in the public- and private-limited companies, both national and international, mostly registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan. In this context, the black-listing of around 45 national and international companies over charges of submission of fake/forged documents as well as involvement in corrupt/fraudulent collusive practices by Public Procurement Authority are cases in point.

Since in Pakistan, particularly in Islamabad, most of the investments are made in real estate, housing societies have been mushrooming for quite some time under the various laws. People are enticed into investing in housing schemes, but many of them stand deprived of their hard earned money, getting no dividends or the properties they were promised.

There are cases where builders and developers have started construction of buildings without obtaining approval from the Capital Development Authority (CDA) and lured people into purchase apartments in such buildings. But despite payments and passage of years, no worthwhile progress has been made on the sites.

On wonders how it is possible to advertise such schemes and launch them in the heart of the capital? What have the regulatory authorities like the CDA, the Chief Commissioner Islamabad and the FIA – which are working under the Ministry of Interior, the SECP, the Registrar of Firms, and so on – been doing? Why is this evil not being nipped in the bud? Will NAB ever come to the rescue of these affectees?

The answer to these questions lies in strengthening the relevant regulators and making them effective. It is high time for NAB to take action against such corruption and corrupt practices and provide relief to the victims of the builder mafia.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2020.

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