Role of youth in combating corruption highlighted

Pakistan, China and India were the countries where youth population outnumbered all other social segments, mandating the national agenda in each of those three countries to invest its maximum focus, resource and input in youth to secure prosperous and corruption-free future for the generations to follow", said Professor Dr Fateh Muhammad Burfat, Vice-Chancellor, University of Sindh, Jamshoro.
This he said in his remarks as event President at one-day seminar on the theme of "Role of Youth in the Fight against Corruption" organized by University of Sindh, Jamshoro in collaboration with National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Karachi. "Youth are flamboyant sparks, capable of igniting apocalyptic annihilating fire or spreading light through enduring constructive contribution, depending on the milieu they inhibit, the parental, family and institutional input they receive and the socio-cultural and political orientation they grow up with", elucidated Dr Burfat.
Dr Burfat said, for National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and other corruption-combating institutions in Pakistan it was compulsory to shift their focus from traditional post-active operational strategies to proactive policies of moral and personal grooming of young impressionable minds to nip the menace of corruption in the bud. "The best of power is not to 'will', even when you be able to indulge in corrupt practices and the second best is not to 'can'", he emphasized saying it was the most important ethical dimension of the phenomenon.
"Today, we, more than ever, need a corruption-free-and-immune society in Pakistan, as just after a decade, technological boom will bring us chauffeur-free cars on call, innovation, invention and automation will make each one of us independent, self-sufficient and self-driven; necessitating us more than ever before to be morally-unerring, sound, conscientious and honest; and this is where the role of youth in combating corruption becomes significant", elaborated the Vice-Chancellor.
Dr Burfat also advised youth to take recourse to 15-point Transparency International anti-corruption toolkit and make its best use to understand the monster of corruption and also to effectively obliterate it. "You are click-and-Google generation; by a flip of your finger you can access this toolkit, orient yourself and cast your vital influence in the context of curbing corruption in society", he told the youth audience. Dr Burfat thanked DG-NAB for having chosen University of Sindh as a site and setting for the youth interface in the ambit of corruption-proof Pakistan. "We will work as your frontline soldiers in this sacred crusade against corruption in the supreme national interest", he assured DG Bawani.
The day's Keynote Speaker and Event Chief Guest Director General, National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Karachi Muhammad Altaf Bawani said that they were specifically pinning down on school, college and university students by substantially integrating ethical content in curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular domains to purge youth of their avarice to indulge in embezzlements. "While we were young or even kids we heard our parents tell us to abstain from wrongful earning as it would take away 'Barkat'(bounty) from our 'Rizq'(sustenance); hence, home is the basic place where we need to inculcate among children scorn against lustful lure of corruption", he confided.
DG Bawani said that corruption carried genetic effects as it went into the body and bones, into DNA of the succeeding generations through blood transformation from one generation to the other. This, he explained, was termed as 'Meme' in modern science.
"Corruption is not merely committed through financial irregularities. It has numerous forms. You, as students when resort to cheating, coercion, unfair means you too may be liable to indulging in corruption. On the contrary when you believe in fair play, justice labour, honesty, merit and positive competition; you avoid corruption and act as per divine commandments and Islamic principles", he informed students.
Bawani thanked VC-SU Professor Dr Fateh Muhammad Burfat for having invited him and afforded him the opportunity of getting back to University of Sindh, his Alma Mater to engage in an important talk with its talented youth. "You would be glad to know that NAB, in the past few years had been able to restore to Pakistan's national exchequer a massive amount of Rs 288 billion from a wide cross-section of convicts. Rs 30 Billion had been retrieved by NAB Sindh", he informed.
Bawani also stressed the paramount role of women and girls to this effect, explaining that women in their varied positions as mothers, sisters and wives could educate and influence men not to become part of the dirty practice of kickbacks.
"Sindh is the soil of sufis. Sufi teachings advocate and stress austerity, restraint and reserve, corruption is out of socio-cultural fabric of Sindh; so is blind ambition and excess", he urged. "We need to teach abstinence and rigor to our minds to defeat the devil of corruption", he urged. Earlier, Dr Sumera Umrani, Director, Bureau of STAGS presented welcome note and introduction of the speaker. Mementos were also exchanged on this eve.
Dean, Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration Professor Dr Muneeruddin Soomro and SU Registrar Sajid Qayoom Memon also shared the stage with the worthy guests.