CORRUPTION has plagued our country for decades. There are many scales, methods and types of corruption that have penetrated into our society. The dilemma is our society’s incomprehensibility and insensitivity towards this malpractice.

Corruption can acquire many shapes and one needs clarity to assess its prevalence. People have taken this menace for granted and there is little public or personal sense of discouragement directed towards the corrupt people. Our society is ‘corruption tolerant’.

There is another interesting psychological phenomenon: people confuse or perceive the corrupt as incompetent and competent as non-corrupt.

This has caused great confusion and misconception among people as they have started thinking of corruption as a subordinate to professional competence or competent people as angelic.

I see this in the case of many bureaucrats, businessmen and professionals whose public speaking and administrative skills have caused people to believe that either they are not corrupt or that their corrupt acts have to be tolerated.

It is time to assert that corruption as a principle is intolerable: morally, ethically and lawfully. There is no excuse or justification for one’s act of corruption. The most lethal form of corruption is when it is practised by people of great competence and intelligence.

Qualification and competence are not linked to the integrity and nobility of a man. Even the most competent people, when proved corrupt, will be discouraged and discredited regardless of their achievements and societal contribution.

The world does not lack diligent individuals, yet it needs to be cleansed of corrupt people.

Awais Anjum

Islamabad

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2018