Corruption is a hotly debated subject. Those involved in corruption neither pay taxes nor declare their ill-gotten wealth. Their behaviour is based on the assumption that enjoying the luxury of present life wonderful event. Therefore, the law of morality and ethics is their forgotten chapter.
Their lifestyles generate hate and anguish among masses who are struggling to survive by keeping their soul and body together. Fed up with lack of availability of fair justice and low implementation of accountability, people resort to street justice leading to extremism.
All types of social evils crop up and have adverse impact on the social life. Socio-economic tensions generate fury and anguish - resulting into social destabilisation. The effects are disastrous - at times volcanic. In Pakistan, as is reported in print and digital media, corruption is rampant across the board from top to bottom. In his national address to the nation on October 17, 2010, the Prime Minister made a confession that corruption does exist in Pakistan.
Several international agencies/institutions continue to release their perceptions about rising trend of corruption in Pakistan. This piece looks at some aspects so that these are properly addressed by the stakeholders in general and the Government of Pakistan in particular so that first the current level of corruption is brought to zero level and later its reversal starts to the benefits to the nation.
Corruption breeds extremism. It generates hate against those who are corrupt and continue to multiply their ill-gotten wealth through unfair means. It creates frustration in the society. It contributes to increase in inflation in the country. It brings misery to social set-up. Eventually, except for those who amass wealth through corruption, overwhelming majority of the people are in social tension and economic pressure. It is instrumental in motivating the outflow but even from Pakistanis abroad and discourages inflow of funds through foreign investment. It cripples governance. All in all, the effects are disastrous.
This piece looks at some aspects of corruption in Pakistan with the objective that its extent should be reduced to minimum possible, if not to zero level and efforts are initiated to curb it through implementation of various suggestions offered in terms of strategic directions.
Ideological aspects: Pakistan was born under the name of Islam. This ideology needs to be properly understood and its spirit needs to be indoctrinated into everybody's mind in toto. Those institutions, which are propagating and spreading the above message, need to identify the issues facing Pakistan. Corruption reduction should be taken as agenda item No 1. Allah, in Al-Quran, has emphasised the importance of first reforming the man. In this respect, Divine value system has a strong logistic to bring social change, which will serve as a major deterrent to corrupt malpractices. The real problem lies with mindset.
During Musharraf's regime, the Senate of Pakistan debated as to what was the problem No 1 of Pakistan. It was concluded that the real problem in our country was "mindset". Unless the mind changes for the better, the cancer of corruption will continue to spread. The frontline solution lies in implementing the spirit of Divine value system, which needs to be properly comprehended and totally implemented in Islamic Republic of Pakistan. This is quoted below:
International perception: There are several indices released by outside agencies relating to their perceptions about the level of corruption in the country. These voices are strongly heard in print and electronic media. These bodies have their own research methodology through which they are able to develop their own perception about the level of corruption rampant in several countries of the world, including Pakistan. A brief gist in this respect is as under:
Transparency Interna-tional-CPI 2009: For the last several years Transparency International, headquartered in Germany has been releasing on annual basis CPI (Corruption Perception Index). They took a sample of 91 countries of the world. Their latest CPI was released in the year 2009. The spread of their work was expanded to 180 countries of the world including Pakistan. Their measurement of CPI is based on a scale of 0 - 10. The higher the scale, the less is the corruption, the lesser the scale, the greater is the corruption. The least corrupt country of the world was named as New Zealand (9.3 and the worst were Somalia, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Iraq etc. These countries received a rank of 1 +. Pakistan received a rank of 2.4 out of 10 - showing high corruption level.
Global Integrity Index 2008: In this index, a positive tribute was paid to Pakistan, stating that it had strong anti-corruption legal framework. However, it was reported that implementation was lacking and therefore, corruption was rampant and growing.
World Bank Global Governance Index: This index also included corruption as one of its constituents and showed poor governance in Pakistan causing corruption.
NCPI (National Corruption Perception Index) - 2010: Transparency International, in a smart move, has developed an institutional set up and is releasing National Corruption Perception Index (NCPI). In this respect, its latest report released in Pakistan has disseminated level of corruption in various Government Departments. Police was ranked at the top (38%), power sector was ranked No 2 (22%), land administration obtained rank No 3 (8%), education obtained rank No 4 (7%) and it was reported that the local government in Pakistan ranked No 5 (7%). In these five departments, corruption had a loin's share (82%). The remaining 18% corruption was reported in industries, health, taxation, customs and tendering systems.
In addition to release of the above interesting data, NCPI has also started writing to various institutions in Pakistan to take up corruption cases in the country. They have approached the Supreme Court of Pakistan and even Federal Board of Revenue have also been approached. They provided their own available data information to various institutions so that the corrupt practices are curbed and corrupt persons are unmasked. They scream for fair and appropriate action. These are new trends and efforts to arrest the growing cancer of corruption in our country.
Public sector: Public sector is reported to be suffering from huge losses. The Federal Finance Minister, in his budget speech, has made specific references to these losses, which public sector is inflicting as an adverse effect on budget of Pakistan. These losses are the result of mismanagement and corruption. In recent times, several profit-making public sector institutions have turned into losses.
Supreme Court of Pakistan has taken up the issue of National Insurance Company Limited (NICL). It is generally reported that corrupt practices have resulted into huge losses. PIA has been suffering big losses. Pakistan Steel, in recent years, has become a loss generating public sector institution rather than from profit-making one. The opposition of Pakistan has recently staged a walkout in the National Assembly session against the employment and induction policies of the present government. They have alleged that loyalty to the party has been given much bigger weight than competence. Consequently, the public sector in the short and long run is going to have financial losses and will cripple the financial position of the Federal government budget in future. It is surprising that no separate budget for public sector is prepared and presented to the Parliament for open debate.
It is suggested that this job should immediately be taken by the Parliament to strengthen democracy and to serve as on watch on cases of malpractices in public sector. The sooner this is done the better, failing which the budget deficit will continue to grow beyond manageable limits. A rough estimate of public sector annual losses is in the range of Rs 300 billion to 500 billion. During the last one year, no public sector enterprise has been privatised and no privatisation policy has been released and the policy-makers are urged to attend to this agenda item urgently.
Suggested directions: A comprehensive and multiple dimensional approach is needed to tackle corruption and reduce its incidence in terms of adverse effects. Some strategic directions are as under:
-- The Supreme Court of Pakistan and all the high courts are suggested to set up an institutional framework whereby one Judge is allocated the work of suo motu action based on electronic and media print reports relating to corruption and initiate appropriate action.
-- All persons holding hidden wealth within Pakistan and abroad are urged to declare their wealth for which the Parliament is suggested to hold a special session and pass the legislation so that foundations of Pakistan on financial fronts are strengthened. If budget deficit was eliminated, the reliance on foreign borrowing and internal borrowing will be substantially reduced. The Parliament may pass a law in this respect.
-- National Accountability Bureau may be manned by persons of unquestionable integrity. Their top positions may be filled up with total consensus and understanding between the government and the opposition.
-- The Federal Board of Revenue is needed to be manned by persons with professional expertise and business acumen. Every person in Pakistan who is above 18 years of age, should be required to file not only income tax return but also wealth statement so that the real wealth, owned by people in Pakistan, is brought on books, and based on this Parliament may pass relevant laws to bring all persons accountable for their source of income. This law should be made applicable to those persons whose annual income is Rs 300,000 and above.
-- An independent body of persons of high integrity be set up to scrutinise the annual wealth statement of all government officials with BS-17 and above.
-- Election Commission of Pakistan should be strengthened to make it independent and enforce the application of Article No 63 and No 64 of the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan before declaring a person eligible for election. He/she should file a clear-cut statement of their wealth in Pakistan and abroad together with their sources of income. A bank account may be opened in State Bank of Pakistan in which people with ill-gotten money accumulated through corrupt practices and undeclared should deposit 10% as income tax to permit this to be declared as a white money for the last time in the history of Pakistan. Deterrent punishment may be prescribed in case of any default. The civil society may rise to the occasion and launch a massive movement against corruption and social boycott be announced against publicly known corrupt persons in Pakistan.
The print and the electronic media should continue their positive role as anti-corruption so that through investigative reporting and dissemination of their results to create awareness.
-- Our legal fraternity is humbly requested not to pursue corrupt people cases in courts in the larger national interest of Pakistan.
-- The universities in Pakistan should launch anti-corruption drive through holding seminars, workshops, thereby awareness be created and corrupt practices be curbed.
-- All stakeholders should take serious cognisance of the cancer spreading through corruption, which is creeping into the vitals of our country. The democratic government must rise to the occasion and exercise its will for developing a legal, managerial and solid framework for giving serious consideration to the foregoing suggestions which, Insha Allah, will be the first step towards reducing the level of corruption in the country and will also lay a foundation for a crackdown on corruption in the long run to make Pakistan economically and financially strong to face the challenges. By Allah's grace, time is on our side and we will eventually come out successful in pulling Pakistan out of corruption trap (Amen).
(The writer is Professor Emeritus and Founder Principal of Hailey College of Banking & Finance, University of the Punjab, Lahore)