ISLAMABAD, Jan 31: The government is building necessary expertise to effectively fight the economic crimes in the field of unauthorized use of telecommunication facilities, spurious drugs and copyrights violations.
Official sources told Dawn on Tuesday that additional funding is being made available to law enforcement agencies to fight economic crimes over which the United States and other western countries have been expressing their serious concern.
However, the law enforcement agencies are experiencing new challenges because of not having requisite facilities to counter the new crimes. It was in that backdrop a decision was taken at the highest level not only to offer sizable additional resources to the law enforcement agencies but to also seek necessary financial and technical support of the US government and other western countries.
According to an official document, made available to this correspondent, the government is aware of the fact that some elements are violating copyright laws by engaging in unauthorized production of copyrighted material. “This harms the reputation of the country and discourages foreign investment”. The government through the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has launched special campaign against the manufacturers of pirated CDs and other such material. Over 500,000 pirated CDs, DVDs, audio-cassettes were seized. This has sent a signal to the offenders that the law against intellectual piracy will be strictly enforced and implemented in the country.
The document said that unauthorized use of telecommunication facilities was posing not only a “security threat” but causing significant losses to the public revenues. The government initiated necessary steps to close such facilities. The violators are being prosecuted in accordance with law.
Spurious drugs pose a grave risk to public health for which, the government has initiated action against illegal manufacturers of such drugs and achieved certain success. Strict enforcement action has brought this activity under considerable control.
However, the document conceded that weak prosecution impedes the delivery of efficient and socially beneficial justice services and contribute to erosion of civil liberties and basic rights. It is necessary that prosecution services must be financially and operationally autonomous and unified under a separate institutional set up to be able to exercise independence of judgment while remaining fully accountable.
An important institutional reform for improving administration of criminal justice is the creation of independent prosecution service within each province. A phased programme has been announced by each provincial government for setting up this service including provision of infrastructure, recruitment and training as well as creation of enabling legal framework.
The government plans to also separately make available Rs20 billion to improve the functioning of the judiciary by providing it a better office facilities. Nearly half of the amount will be utilized by the end of the current financial year.