Diplomatic doings

The Foreign Office needs to act against its officials and determine how many are part of the latest scandal to hit us.

The report in this publication about the doings at various Pakistani diplomatic missions around the world is, to say the least, disturbing. We are told that visas to enter the country have been sold to those blacklisted by intelligence agencies — in most cases Indian nationals. This has happened in several places, with diplomats at various levels involved.

There are obvious security implications involved but the matter goes beyond this. Any sense of ethics that may once have existed appears to have vanished at all levels. The thought of members of the once-prestigious foreign services involved in so tawdry an act of wrongdoing indicates the levels to which we have sunk. We have heard before of other kinds of malpractice. This time the existence of sale of visas in several places would imply a wider involvement of some kind.

We need to investigate the matter and see where it originates. There must be no cover-ups. But perhaps, even more critically, we need to try and assess why we see so many scams, of all shapes, sizes and dimensions, erupt almost on a daily basis. They are reported from everywhere and involve people of all kinds. Anyone with any power appears bent on misusing it. The efforts of the few who don’t are virtually unnoticeable in this sea of corruption, which exists far beyond the political realm, though it is in this context that corruption is most often highlighted.

The time has come for a serious review to be made of what has gone wrong and why, so that the necessary action can be taken. The answer does not lie in punitive measures alone, but also in efforts to try and understand the factors involved and the reasons why corrupt practices have expanded so rapidly. In the meanwhile the Foreign Office, of course, needs to act against its officials and determine how many are a part of this latest scandal to hit us.

Published in The  Express Tribune, December 9^th, 2010.