Redefining accountability

There is nothing wrong about observing the 'International Days' and making solemn pledges to comply with their injunctions. One such occasion was on Sunday, when President Dr Arif Alvi expressed his resolve to further strengthen the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), something the bureau chief was keen to hear - given his call to hang the corrupt, which he thought as an effective population-control action. That President Alvi is highly perceptive about the incidence of corruption in the Pakistani society is a fact as he had paid Rs 50,000 as bribe to get a telephone connection at his dental clinic. But he is sanguine now given his mindset that the NAB law is 'legitimate and the institution is working impartially' - the latter part of his observation being defence of NAB against the growing charge of it being vindictive. President Alvi also said it was corruption that dismembered Pakistan, a claim that runs counter to the insistence that not corruption but the denial to accept electoral verdict in favour of people from the erstwhile East Pakistanis had brought about the breakup of Pakistan. One's expectation on this occasion was that both the president and the NAB chief should have gone some length to dispel the openly expressed doubts about the institution's impartiality instead of just saying that the NAB "looks at the case, not the face". Given the extensive media publicity, a case gets during investigation by the NAB the person under the hammer is deprived of his fundamental right to be treated as innocent until proved guilty. Since any investigation by the NAB tends to acquire the semblance of a trial in court, which it is not, this becomes sometimes problematic for the trial court to arrive at a decision that doesn't sit well with the public perception outlines during the investigation. A case in point may be the suspension of the verdict given by the trial court in the Avenfields property case against the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family by the Islamabad High Court. Interestingly, as we celebrated performance of the NAB we also heard the call to uphold sanctity of human rights as the NAB function coincided with International Day of Human Rights.
Corruption has many faces; it is in the forms of bribery, cronyism, kleptocracy, disregard of merit and electoral fraud. That being the context, in the Transparency International's (TI's) corruption index, Pakistan ranks 117th among 180 countries. If we as a country are more corrupt now than before, there is no clear picture. The TI's 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) had noticed that on a scale of 0 (most corrupt) to 100 (least corrupt) Pakistan still figured at 30, but added 'the corruption trend in Pakistan had been reversed' - eliciting the then Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry's assertion that Pakistan's "positive improvement in CPI ranking proves that the initiatives taken by the NAB are showing practical results". One is therefore a bit sceptical about the claims of great success by the present NAB as one was about Chaudhry's claim. We must have corruption-free national politics; but for that to materialize, we need to obtain nationwide corruption-free culture in all its dimensions. And this is possible only by changing the law. Now, Nawaz Sharif is in the line of fire and wants to be treated innocent until proved guilty. But he had the chance to 'depoliticize' the NAB. He is on record having beef with the then anti-corruption czar, because according to him "the NAB is harassing government officers ... hindering them from performing their duty". He also took umbrage at reports that the NAB officials "barge into houses and offices of innocent people and harass them without looking into authenticity of cases". But if he failed to legislatively redefine the role of the NAB, the present rulers should not. He was incensed because then the NAB cases against him were about to be decided. That's not the case now, but who knows we may arrive at the déjà vu one more time. That being the backdrop the parliament needs to look into this contentious issue and resolve it by redefining the very concept of accountability and also legislate appropriate anti-corruption law in order to give the NAB not only a set of new dentures but also the name as a neutral, impartial and independent entity.