January 10, 2007	Wednesday	Zilhaj 19, 1427

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SWABI, Jan 9: All sections of society need to pull together to ensure good governance in the country for the benefit of all.

This was stated by Mohsin Khan, director-general of the National Accountability Bureau while addressing the inaugural session of the Transparency International-Pakistan workshop on “Youth in Governance” at the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology on Tuesday.

Students from Islamabad, the NWFP and Azad Kashmir universities participated in the workshop.

He said that accountability, political stability and strong government were the pillars of good governance.

“Effective governance requires vision, leadership and institutional mechanism. Above everything it is the change in the attitudes of people that is the deciding factor,” Mr Khan said.

“One of the significant steps towards good governance taken by the government is the launching of the corporate governance strategy in the public sector,” he said. “It means various ministries, divisions, departments and autonomous bodies are required to work under a set vision,” he added.

He said that other factors of governance that needed attention were provision of adequate facilities, corruption-free society, transparent and quality service which had always been serious issues in Pakistan.

Dr Abdullah Sadiq said that governance in 21st century was a complex and challenging task.

“Another important aspect of good governance is making timely decisions after giving due consideration to all aspects of a particular issue,” he said. “Two main challenges that we face in Pakistan are our low literacy and poverty, which further complicated by waste of our meagre resources through inefficiency and corruption.”

Lt. Col. (retd) Aftab Haseeb of NAB said police especially the traffic police, was the most corrupt department in the country, and the bribe money was also shared by the high-ranking officials.

Replying to a question, he said that there was also corruption in the military, but the NAB had been dealing with that and now the army personnel should also declare their assets like the politicians and others.

He said that striking deal with corrupt people was an international concept and through deal the devoured money was retrieved from the figures.

University of Lahore rector Prof (Dr) M. H. Qazi said the Transparency International-Pakistan had not done enough work in the country.

“It should do more to establish a corruption-free society” he added.

TI-Pakistan chairman Syed Adil Gilani and executive director Saad Rashid also spoke on the occasion.