Pakistan has been plagued by mendacity and dishonesty of people in power from the time it came into being. Mere rhetoric to root out corruption and put an end to venal practices of those who call the shots has further aggravated the issue. Will Pakistan ever be corruption-free?
THESE are strange times. In a supposedly more educated and sophisticated world where ethics and morality are spoken about, taught and trumpeted loud and clear, locally and globally, we are witnessing the demise of principles, values and ethics at all levels.
In the recent UN Conference on Anti-Corruption, a great deal of discussion and debate took place, and subsequently many accords were signed to reduce corruption. But the feeling of deja vu always supersedes such agreements as we see more and more focus on this issue and very little action to actually curb and control it.
In the three-day International Conference against Corruption (UNCAC), held in Islamabad by the UN and hosted by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), foreign experts termed corruption in Pakistan as a complex issue and promised help to eradicate the menace with a view to giving the economy a boost.
“In Pakistan, corruption is a more complex issue,” Phil Mason, leader of Anti-Corruption Team Policy Division of the UK-based Department for International Development (DFID) said in an interview in Islamabad. Pakistan’s strategy to curb corruption shows its eagerness to fight against it, Mason said and added: “Pakistan is not alone in its fight against corruption.” Mason lauded the role played by the NAB and said it had done a great job in curbing corruption that ultimately ruins the economy.
While referring to corruption in Pakistan, NAB Chairman Lt-Gen Munir Hafiez, told the opening session of the UNCAC: “Foreign aid worth billions of dollars has failed to have a significant impact on end beneficiaries, state institutions have lost their writ, faith in the system to provide justice is very low. In 1999 when the NAB was created the situation was at its lowest ebb. Despondency was at its worst.”
As we see the two major sponsors of this conference, the UN and the NAB, making tall claims and praising each other for their role in curbing corruption, recent evidence shows how hollow and meaningless their rhetoric is.
AID OR RAID?: Donor agencies have a crucial role to play. Perhaps uniquely, they occupy positions that are supposed to bridge any divide between the developing and developed countries. They work alongside the developing country government and closely share their aspirations for economic and social progress. They also occupy positions of (potential) influence at home, bringing the “voice” of developing country interests into the domestic policy dialogue. Unfortunately, they have been time and again found pursuing their own selfish agendas and have actually aided and abetted the corrupt and the dishonest.
Take the example of the world’s most “respected” development organization, the UN. The Iraqi regime, with assistance from UN officials in some cases, wrongfully acquired $10.1 billion through smuggling oil, oil-sale surcharges, and illegal commissions on oil-for-food contracts, representing a scandal without precedent in UN’s history.
The alleged bribes, surcharges and other improprieties surrounding the UN’s oil-for-food programme in Iraq was worth a total of $67 billion, which could turn into “the biggest scandal ever”. Ahmed Chalabi, a member of Iraq’s American-appointed Governing Council (GC) calls it “the biggest political bribery scandal in history”.
A list of 265 supposed beneficiaries of the former Iraqi dictator’s illicit largess in 52 countries includes all five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Among those named are Indonesia’s President Megawati Sukarnoputri; Charles Pasqua, a former French interior minister; and Benon Sevan, who ran the UN’s oil-for-food programme.
There are hints that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan could find himself compromised. Much has been made of the fact that his son, Kojo, worked for a company that won a juicy contract under the oil-for-food programme. With such allegations on their own conduct how can they preach anti-corruption to anybody in the world?
DISCRIMINATORY NABBING: Corruption, they say, normally seeps from the top, whether it is a country, a company or a culture. Countries which have been branded as corrupt are usually those where the leadership has tried all fair and foul means to maintain their positions and power; companies who have been beset by fraudulent practices often found their top management guilty of breaking ethical and moral codes of conduct for personal gains; and cultures where greed and graft go unpunished become flourishing soils for corruption fertility. Thus, if corruption has to be handled, it must be across the board, preferably starting from the top.
When the NAB was formed in 1999, it claimed that it was not going to spare any corrupt individual, be it a politician, military big shot or a powerful industrialist. Over a period of time we have seen the NAB’s failure to live up to this claim. Cases filed against confirmed criminals have been dismissed and we know many politicians and industrialists who are guilty of heinous crimes are still ruling the country.
President Musharraf in his address to the conference admitted that “corruption by the rich is absolutely inexcusable”, since it’s based on greed and added, “I have told the NAB to go after the rich and powerful, and forget the poor, given need and the lower magnitude of the crime.” Strange comments considering that corruption has nothing to do with magnitude; rather it’s to do with the intent to deceive. He lamented, “The corrupt managed to get elected and even enter governments.”
These are comments which are completely unacceptable as an explanation for either the existence of corruption in the country or the lame performance of the NAB in being fair and equitable in its treatment of the corrupt.
APOLOGIZING CORRUPTION AWAY: Perhaps political closeness that President Musharraf has enjoyed with the White House in the last year or so has made him learn the latest art of dealing with corruption and scandals, that is, accept them, look suitably outraged and upset, apologize emphatically and close the case. Knowing about the corrupt and not doing anything about it is an equal crime to being corrupt yourself. If the president and the NAB have not been able to “touch” the confirmed criminals because they are ministers, it is their moral duty to resign. Otherwise they will be considered a party to it.
This is not the first time that the president has publicly admitted to corruption. In his speech after the referendum, which gave him the vote to stay on, he admitted to rigging in the elections and duly apologized, yet continued to merrily legitimize the results of the referendum and hold them valid. Apology for misuse, abuse and corruption is in vogue in political high places these days. President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair have set this trend, as the heinous scandal on the horrific abuse of Iraqi soldiers unfolds itself, both Bush and Blair make public apologies over it, promise to punish the offenders, and then blatantly do the contrary. Donald Rumsfeld, who will go down in political history as the biggest competitor to Hitler and who has been openly acknowledged as the man responsible for this abuse, has been heralded as a hero by President Bush. He has heaped praise on him declaring him “brave, courageous, saviour of America and a man of high integrity”. Being of the same clan himself, it is obvious that Bush will defend him to death.
GLOBAL CORRUPTION EPIDEMIC: Never in history has there been so much talk about global corruption. Whether it is due to intense media attention and focus or a more vigilant checks and balance system is hard to say; but it is a fact that corruption is no longer a fact of life in just under-developed and poor countries, but is as prevalent in the developed countries.
Countries who are given a clean bill of corruption like the US and the UK by international organizations such the Transparency International are perhaps the biggest culprits themselves. Somehow, the definition of ‘country corruption’ is that as long as it does not effect their own interests and remains restricted to corruption in other countries, it is allowed under the guise of “in the larger interest of the country”, “speeding up the process”, “people not capable to make judicious decisions” etc. With such subjective interpretation of this phrase a lot of crimes committed by these countries that may be termed as moral, psychological and emotional corruption remain unrecorded, which helps these countries to define themselves as holier than the LDC world. Take the example of US double standards, where all types of torture, disregard of rules and conventions has been justified as “saving the world from a disaster”. Their blatant atrocities in Iraq and yet the pretence of standing on high moral grounds and their total absolution to all crimes committed by Israel, are a clear evidence of high moral corruption.
President George Bush received Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at a time when Sharon and his son were being investigated by the Israeli prosecutor’s office on corruption charges for getting an illegal financial favour from one of his rich friends. Had a Third World or a Muslim leader been mired in a corruption controversy like this at home, he would have been razed to death by Bush mouthpieces, namely the CNN and FOX. Moral and ethical corruption of the US has maimed all international institutions of any stature as these institutions have been easily bribed or blackmailed by these countries into stammering submission. Vibrant democratic countries are still far from immune to corruption or abuse of power and offer little protection for whistleblowers.
Not one of 25 democratic nations studied in the unprecedented report on government accountability got top scores in stopping or checking corruption, according to the Washington-based Centre for Public Integrity, a non-profit research group that monitors political spending.
“From Argentina to the US, every one of the 25 countries we studied is susceptible to abuses of power, whether from a lack of transparency, a lack of accountability from an independent agency overseeing the electoral process, or having no disclosure requirements or limits on money from individuals and corporations flowing into the political system,” said the centre’s Global Integrity Report, which was compiled by more than 150 social scientists and took two years to finish.
Its authors say the tool aims to gauge a country’s commitment to the rule of law, press freedom and transparency of government decisions.
The index judge the 25 countries in six broad areas: civil society, public information and media; electoral and political processes; branches of the government; administration and civil service; oversight and regulatory mechanisms; and anti-corruption mechanisms and the rule of law.
The report, which also ranks the largest democracy in each continent, says the United Stated ranked first in two of six broad areas studied, including “very strong” ratings in the civil society and branches of government category, but was low in other areas.
In 14 countries, head of state cannot be prosecuted for corruption, while in six countries the ruling party controls two-thirds or more of seats in the national legislature, restricting the opposition’s ability to monitor the official accountability process.
Money also plays a role in political abuse of power. The report found that political donations were used in all countries surveyed to win political favours. The report cites how US energy giant Enron, which was one of President George W. Bush’s top donors to his career, spent millions of dollars on politicians and parties from the late 1980s to the time of its collapse in December 2001.
As a result, the company now received billions of dollars’ worth of “favourable treatment from federal and state government officials on no fewer than 49 occasions”, it adds.
France and Russia have been accused of opposing the war in Iraq because influential individuals in those countries did not want to lose their bribes, which received more than $1 billion for administering the six-year programme, and may have been loth to see the end of such a lucrative source of income.
In India, after the feisty website Tehelka.com exposed a corruption scandal by secretly video-filming a bribe being offered to the leader of Defence Minister George Fernandes’ party, he resigned for a while, but soon returned to office. Tehelka.com paid a big price, as it has been hounded since and been forced to scale down operations.
COMPANY CORRUPTION CRISIS: Shell, Enron and Vivendi were names which were once known for their untarnished reputation. These very names are now associated with mass misreporting of accounts and fraudulent financial practices, which have enriched their top management but have destroyed the future of millions of shareholders and employees. Take the example of the SGS, the Swiss inspection company that was caught bribing Benazir and Asif Zardari. After such confirmed evidence they are now negotiating a settlement with the present government — and as we know “settlement” is the best euphemism for bribe and payoff.
CONCLUSION: It is sad that corruption is increasingly defined, accepted and condoned in terms of the power brokers of the world, be it at the national level or with regard to any company. As long as power brokers can wield their power legally and morally, they become the biggest torch-bearers of honesty and integrity, but as soon as their position is threatened they tend to change the definition of the word.
Corruption cannot be controlled by holding fancy conferences and signing mighty accords, but by developing a system which does not discriminate between rank, position and power. Perhaps, the best example of it was given by the South Korean prime minister who announced the elimination of tax evasion and anti-corruption drive a couple of years ago. One of the first culprits to be jailed and fined was his own son, whose arrest was telecast live to set a trend that has helped the country to be almost purged of the evil in a matter of a couple of years. Unless the army, ministers and other power brokers are brought to total, and not token, justice anti-corruption accords will be considered just another way of perpetuating and legitimizing corruption.
Pakistan has been plagued by mendacity and dishonesty of people in power from the time it came into being. Mere rhetoric to root out corruption and put an end to venal practices of those who call the shots has further aggravated the issue. Will Pakistan ever be corruption-free? 
