Corruption in NADRA

The much-vaunted probity of NADRA has been badly dented by the revelation that terrorists and other criminals or illegal immigrants to the country have been able to obtain fake national identity cards (CNIC). The numbers of fake identities issued has been climbing alarmingly in recent years. It started small with 26 fake CNICs issued in 2011, went up to 493 in 2012, 6,000 in 2013, 22,000 in 2014 and is already up to 64,000 in 2015 — and that is just the ones we know about, there may be others lurking in the undergrowth. It is cold comfort to learn that all these cards have been blocked, and the volume of deception is such that it points to serious systemic flaws and deep corruption within NADRA itself. The inquiry was conducted after law-enforcement agencies found Pakistani passports and CNICs on the bodies of terrorists or on others that were taken into custody. A senior al Qaeda leader killed by the military in 2014 had on him a National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis.

The matter came to light after the country’s leading intelligence agency shared the findings of a report with the NADRA chairman. Up to 40 officials, some of them retired military officials are named as being involved in the issuance of fake CNICs. Whether they do this for monetary gain or because they sympathise with the extreme views of some of those who obtained fake IDs is unknown, but the fact that it happened at all is a significant breach in national security. The CNIC is regarded as the primary identifier, the single most reliable validation of the identity of an individual and the quality of their legal status in the country. The NADRA chairman has ordered an inquiry into this obvious security breach but the damage has been done, particularly to the reputation of NADRA, which can no longer claim to be above corruption. It is now revealed that elements within it were complicit in an illegal operation happening over years and involving dozens of NADRA officials, and reputations thus lost are very difficult to regain.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 7^th,  2015.

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