Despite tall claims by government officials, corruption is still rampant in our society
DURING the election campaign in 1964, Ayub Khan had pledged that if elected to the post of president he would remove corruption from all spheres of life. To this, Miss Fatimah Jinnah responded that ‘corruption begins from higher echelons and descends like snow melting from the summits’. Her statement was not an academic one, but presented a particular theory of corruption.
When one saw Sindh chief minister and a former member of the provincial cabinet levelling corruption allegations against each other, Miss Jinnah’s assertion seems right.
No country in the world is devoid of the evil of corruption. But for the sake of identity, this practice classifies the world in two major groups, that is, the advanced and developing countries. We fall into the second category where per capita income is little more than one dollar. From any standard this level is said to be touching the poverty line, but statistics show that despite the government’s claims poverty is on the rise.
The history of corruption in Pakistan is not a hidden one, especially as far as politics is concerned. It began when the country was in its infancy and migration from India was still going on. It was then that corruption on a higher level became obvious. On Jan 6, 1949, a law, Public and Representative Offices (Disqualification Act) or PRODA, was enacted aimed at punishing those politicians who had misused their authority and were accused of nepotism. This law was to become effective from Aug 14, 1947. This raised a hue and cry among politicians. The act could have prevented the rise of corruption to an extent, but since it was enacted with the intention of political profiteering, it failed to deliver the goods. At the same time there was a government within the government which mostly comprised bureaucracy and some politicians.
With many political turns and twists, Ayub Khan took full advantage of the situation and imposed martial law in the country on Oct 7, 1958. He had planned well in advance to assume power, and once in the saddle he decided to remove politicians from his way. He directed to collect all information about politicians including that of chairmen of local boards and municipal committees. In fact, he propagated corrupt deeds of politicians to such an extent that he had to justify his stance. And for that on March 21, 1959, he promulgated the Public Offices (Disqualification) Order (PODO) which was to take account of “misconduct” of those politicians who, while holding public offices, had committed certain misdeeds. If proven guilty, such politicians were to be disqualified for 15 years. A tribunal under the chairmanship of Akhtar Hussain was set-up to try such cases. An army official, Lt-Gen Bakhtiar Rana and Chief Secretary of West Pakistan Khurshid Hussain were members of the tribunal. The tribunal based its proceedings on the inquiries made by the anti-corruption department and on Aug 10, 1959, cases were prepared against 12 former ministers, three former chief ministers, 150 former deputy ministers and parliamentary secretaries and about 600 former members of the assemblies. Ironically, when these cases were being prepared by anti-corruption personnel, every former minister and member greased the palm of inquiry officers to make weak cases so that they should be spared of the PODO.
When the files were ready for prosecution, one of Ayub Khan’s “well-wishers” advised him that it would be a long procedure and take a long time to dispose of cases, and would fail the “noble” objective he wanted to achieve. Ayub Khan understood and on Aug 7, 1959, enacted a “comprehensive” law, the Elective Bodies (Disqualification) Order (EBDO). This new law envisaged that all those persons who had held any public office and had been proved to have committed any kind of corrupt practice would be disqualified for six years. The term included chairpersons of the local bodies and was effective from Aug 14, 1947. In the law, those persons were also included who had been previously disqualified under any law, or prosecuted under the Security Act of Pakistan, or had been disqualified under PRODA or convicted for two years or more. This law gave amnesty to the politicians who would voluntarily announce that they would retire from politics before Dec 31, 1966. Politicians knew the implications of this law; therefore, they kept silent. Three tribunals were set-up: one at the Centre and two at the provinces. The central tribunal comprised Justice Changez Fazlur Rahman of West Pakistan High Court and Lt-Col Akram, while in West Pakistan the tribunal had Justice Mohammad Sharif, retired judge of the Supreme Court as chairman, with F. Majeedullah and Lt-Col Mohammad Ishaq as members. For East Pakistan, Justice A. S. M. Ikram, a judge of the Supreme Court was appointed head of the tribunal while A. M. Chaudhry and Lt-Col Ahmad Khalil were its members.
About 2,000 files were prepared. Among them, 70 politicians, including Mian Mumtaz Daultana, decided to keep away from politics for six years. The rest decided to face cases. Ayub Khan wanted all of them to be declared corrupt, but some charges were too flimsy. Mumtaz Hassan Qizalbash, former chief minister of the Khairpur state and former food minister of West Pakistan, was charged with taking 1,000 acres of state land at the rate of one rupee per acre. The former Sindh chief minister Pirzada Abdus Sattar was accused of spending state money on hunting and other entertainment. Ten Republican party members were charged that they spent state money on inviting society girls for three nights.
Ayub Khan was so anxious to see all of them disqualified that he went through the probe reports personally. The reports’ findings were: misuse of official cars and telephone, extra facilities to private secretaries, carrying out development works in their constituencies on a priority basis, exerting pressure on officials, making recommendations, interfering in transfers of government officials, extracting political gains from official visits and spending more than budget sanctions etc.
When Ayub Khan went through these findings he became perturbed as there exited no evidence against any politician who could be prosecuted for anti-state activities. However, all were prosecuted. The tribunals were asked to dispose of cases expeditiously. Most of the prosecuted were EBDOed.
Ayub Khan’s intentions were quite obvious to have a clean ground to play his politics, but the reality is that despite removing many politicians from the scene the culture of corruption never ended.
During Yahya Khan’s tenure, the government retained the status quo. Mismanagement of funds remained a routine thing. Bureaucracy became stronger, which gave rise to corruption. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was the first ruler who took action against bureaucrats on various corruption charges. He also gave a service structure but bureaucracy acted in a well-knit manner making sure mendacious activities stayed there.
In this regard, the situation becomes more serious when the overall economic infrastructure of the country faces innumerable problems. One the one hand, inadequate per capita income and the rising cost of living have made the common man’s life miserable, and created an affluent class on the other. In simple words, Pakistan has yet to see a middle class. Therefore, it can be said that two classes exist in our society: the rich and the poor. And this gives rise to economic anomalies that are not easy to resolve.
Despite tall claims by government officials, corruption is still rampant in our society
