The outing of the NRO beneficiaries' list - its inventory of crimes, ranging from financial corruption and misuse of authority to common crimes of murder and torture - has turned out to be a major naming and shaming event. First, it was the Law and Justice Minister of State, Afzal Sindhu, who came under fire from his partymen for uncovering the list at a high-profile press conference, instead of issuing it quietly through a press release.
Considering that the government decided to release the list under tremendous public and media pressure, the impact would not have been any different. One by one, many of the named prominent personalities have come out to take "I am not a beneficiary" stance. But most interesting is the MQM's response. The biggest beneficiary of the controversial law, the party which had 3,775 cases quashed under the NRO, immediately tried to climb the moral high ground.
Its senior leader and a federal minister, Farooq Sattar, called a press conference almost immediately after the list became public to argue that "there is a big difference between the criminal and corruption cases. No leader or worker of the MQM has ever faced any corruption charges." What the MQM is perhaps saying is that it is not such a bad thing to murder or torture people as is financial wrongdoing!
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has also attempted to defend his party men. Pointing out that there are only 34 politicians in a list of 8041 NRO beneficiaries, he asked journalists covering the launch of JF-17 Thunder aircraft, "why are you focusing on just 34 politicians included in the list, ignoring over 8,000 others?" The answer is this.
Politicians, as opposed to ordinary party workers as well as bureaucrats, are leaders and hence fewer in number than people from other sections of society. More important, when in government they are responsible for whatever happens under their watch in the ministries and departments they head. They cannot say they are innocent, but the people working under them are corrupt.
The truth of the matter is that it is not possible for bureaucrats to amass wealth through illegal means without the collusion of their ministry/department heads. The ordinance will become null and void on November 28, following which all affectees except for President Asif Ali Zardari (seven cases against him await revival), who enjoys impunity from prosecution as long as he occupies the president's office, will have to face the courts of law.
Some of the cases may be based on false allegations, but that should not allow everyone to hide behind the standard self-protection line being trotted out by those involved: that they are innocent victims of the politics of revenge that prevailed in the decade of the 90s. The very fact they decided to benefit from the discriminatory law strengthens suspicions of guilt against them.
Nonetheless, as per the universally accepted principle of justice, they must be deemed innocent until proven guilty. Meanwhile, those in government have a moral obligation to resign and face the courts, and return only after clearing their names. Morality, though, does not count for much in our political culture. There is also the problem of our legal system being painfully slow in delivering justice.
At its normal pace, it may take years to decide the cases in question. It, in fact, is the justification the principal beneficiaries of the NRO employ in their defence. They say that they had been dragged in courts for years and, in certain instances, suffered imprisonment as well, and yet nothing was proven against them. Extraordinary situations, such as the present one, call for extraordinary solutions. Our newly-independent judiciary needs to set up special tribunals to try these cases and deliver justice expeditiously.
A complicating factor is that the principal beneficiaries happen to occupy key government positions. The government is supposed, not only to approach the courts for the reopening of such cases on the State's behalf, but also to provide them with the necessary documentary evidence. Some reports suggest that the evidence is being tampered with or destroyed. If correct, it becomes all the more important that these cases be disposed of in a speedy manner.
Our ruling elites have been plundering the nation's wealth at the expense of the poor, and the country's developmental effort. Year after year, Transparency International has been assigning Pakistan a place of infamy, counting it among the world's most corrupt countries. That is not because there is something intrinsically wrong with our people, but because our system of governance, its weak institutional oversight and lack of accountability, allows for dishonest practices to flourish.
Politicians and others in advanced countries are more careful than ours due to strong systemic checks. The NRO controversy has thrown up a unique moment in our history for the people to effectively address the pervasive corruption in high places, which is at the root of so much that is wrong with this country. We need to create an atmosphere in which wrongdoing whether of financial or criminal nature is unacceptable.
First and foremost, legal process should move quickly to hold to account not only those who may have availed the cover of NRO to clean their criminal track records, but also many others who have been robbing the nation through massive loan write-offs. Second, the Auditor General's Office should be strengthened and its mandate expanded to allow for regular checks on government departments and public sector entities such as PIA, Pakistan Steel Mills, and Pakistan Railways, which have been running huge losses.
Creditably for him, Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin has just recently revealed and taken cognisance of a financial embezzlement case involving Rs 400-500 billion in the Federal Board of Revenue. Timely audit of these organisations could have helped stop large-scale haemorrhaging/stealing of public money.
Third and most essential thing to do is to put in place an independent accountability commission. Let the aborted attempt by a section of our ruling elite to bring in a discriminatory law, protecting fraud and sleaze, be the starting point of an effective and institutionalised effort to rid this nation of the bane of corruption in high places.
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