Judiciary's relentless efforts to root out corruption are matched in equal measure by the PPP government's relentless efforts under President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani to thwart its efforts to achieve results. Some of this (putting spanners in judiciary's works) can take one or more of the following forms:
1) Appoint to high offices in the anti-corruption departments, people who are themselves accused of serious crimes. Law Minister Babar Awan, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Attorney General Latif Khosa are the high profile examples, which immediately come to mind.
2) Keep away people in the good books of the judiciary as effective in investigating and fighting crime, away from those functions by sacking them or transferring them to a neutral function, one which has nothing to do with fighting crime and corruption. Two FIA Directors, three AGs and many others have quit or were forced to leave due to government's resistance to judiciary's moves during the 32 months of PPP rule.
3) Make no effort to prosecute people who are alleged in the Media or otherwise to have committed serious crimes when they happen to be allegedly close to the high and mighty in the regime. Pak Steel scam and National Insurance Company are two ongoing examples.
JUDICIARY UP AGAINST FORMIDABLE OBSTACLES A glance through just the first week's published news of this month is enough to reveal the alarming state of affairs, highlighting the judiciary's efforts to enforce the rule of law and the PPP government's efforts to raise one difficulty after another in its way. How long can this go on? The following date-wise account of (just one week's) corruption cases, court proceedings and examples of the government's tacit acceptance of corruption, though by no means complete, is enough to give an idea of how deeply entrenched corruption has become in the country with the government dragging its feet on almost every important case pursued by the judiciary.
MALIK ORDERS CORRUPTION TO GET LOST BY 7 NOVEMBER!Newspapers on 1 November 10 carried the startling news that Rehman Malik, our security chief and main political trouble shooter in PPP-MQM problems, himself facing a number of charges of various types, has ordered FIA and other departments under him to end corruption by 7 November 2010, so we are now supposed to have been living under a corruption-free world since the last 48 hours as far as the departments under the Interior Ministry, including FIA are concerned! Phew! I cannot help wondering what took Malik so long to give his "no-more-corruption" order! On the same occasion, Malik debunked the report of Transparency International which showed the government moving further up on the corruption scale. The two items together give a fair idea about where Malik's out-of-the-box "zero tolerance for corruption" policy is headed. Charity begins at home Malik - even nearer home than the ministry under you!
'GOVERNMENT DRAGGING ITS FEET ON MISSING PERSONS'Come 2 November 10, the print media carried the comment that judiciary was not getting much support from the government or the "agencies" in its suo motu efforts to provide justice to families of missing persons looking up to it to pull them out of their misery. Protesting groups - fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters - sorrowful but subdued, are now a frequent sight on TV screens. You could understand their plight only by stopping to consider how you and your family would feel if suddenly a member of your family (which Heavens forbid) were to suddenly disappear without trace and no one able or willing to tell you whether he or she was alive and if yes in what situation. The worst of fears would come crowding in to make it difficult for you to eat, work or sleep without a load of stress crushing your entire being - a state sometimes worse than what it would be if you knew that the "missing" one were dead and the body returned to you.
According to a press report of the same date "the court admonished the Home Secretary and the IG Prisons, Punjab, after additional advocate general, Punjab, informed it that the police had failed to make a headway in the recovery of 11 prisoners involved in heinous crimes and allegedly abducted by intelligence agencies from the Adiala Jail". Even accused persons need a fair trial and have the right to be considered innocent unless and until proved guilty. In any case, there can be no justification for making life difficult for their families for no fault of their own. Are we a civilised society or even trying to move towards civilised governance?
REKO DIQ MINES A DEVELOPING SCAM?On Wednesday 3 November 2010 print media broke a story with the scary headline: "$260 billion goldmines going for a song". A "hush-hush deal" involving mining rights of Reko Diq gold and copper mines was alleged to be nearly struck between "two of the world's largest gold mining groups" and our top people in Islamabad. We learn from Wikipedia encyclopaedia that Reko Diq is a small town in Chagai District, Balochistan, Pakistan, in a desert area 70 kilometers north west of Naukundi, near to the Iran-Afghan border. Reko Diq, is also the name of an ancient volcano, literally means sandy peak.
With the scandals - past and present - concerning Pak Steel, LNG, Bank of Punjab and NIC still fresh in our minds, the mere thought of this country, allegedly about to loose a good part of this god-given bounty to a dishonest deal, is a new source of torment for an average Pakistani. For a country sinking deeper and deeper into indebtedness with each passing month, the gold and copper in Reko Diq and other natural resources like the Thar coal hold out the possibility of economic recovery and of getting rid of the begging bowl, which appears to have become our national symbol.
This dream could become a reality only if exploration and mining deals are concluded in the best interest of the country in a transparent manner without the stigma of kick-backs and devilish "percentages," skewing the negotiations. Following the hue and cry in the media, the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Resources revealed the very next day that a "high level steering committee has been formed to evaluate and negotiate the Reko Diq mining agreement". We await with well-founded apprehensions information about the credentials - moral and technical - of the members of the steering committee.
FOOD OUTLET IN FATIMA JINNAH PARK A report of the same date informs us that The Supreme Court expressed dissatisfaction with the progress (actually lack of it) on implementation of its verdict of 4 June this year through which the Capital Development Authority in Islamabad had been ordered to cancel the land leased illegally to an international food chain in F-9 Park in Islamabad and to demolish its outlet building within 3 months. This had still not been done despite a period of two months beyond the deadline having elapsed. This is not an isolated incident. The court's orders are openly flouted by high ups in the government itself, so others see no reason to take judicial verdicts seriously.
ALLEGED CORRUPTION IN HAJJ ACCOMMODATION On Thursday 4 November, newspapers carried a particularly disturbing report. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry received a letter from Saudi Prince Bandar bin Khalid Al Saud in which the prince reportedly alleged that our Ministry of Religious Affairs acquired substandard accommodation for Pakistani Hajis at exorbitant rates (3,600 SR).
What is worse, the buildings acquired were said to be 3.5 kilometers away from Harem and were hired in preference to buildings located closer (two kilometers away) and offered at a lower rental of SR 3,350. The fact that the letter was sent by the prince to CJP and not to the government of Pakistan speaks volumes about how far the credibility of our present rulers has sunk in the eyes of other countries.
Let us see what further ignominy lies in store for our country once all facts are brought out. To be fair, it is also reported that the Ministry of Religious Affairs considers the letter to be fake and this aspect of the matter is also being looked into. We hold further comment for now hoping that the outcome will clear the ministry of wrongdoing.
PLOTS TO THE PRIVILEGED On the same day (Thursday 4 November), newspapers printed a report about the PM's offer to give plots to MPs "provided the opposition agrees". Thereby hangs a tale! The PPP government has lately come under attack for giving away expensive plots to already rich politicians, bureaucrats, journalists as well as, allegedly, just plain friends and relatives.
The PM came in for particular blame in this. Some even got two or more plots in expensive locations in Islamabad. The idea of taking opposition MPs aboard, this scam is no more and no less than bribing them to keep their mouth shut. In our present state of moral degradation, it would surprise no one if most MPs join in the loot and the matter is hushed up.
If these expensive plots were sold at their commercial value to the highest bidder, the money so obtained could be handy for supplementing the rehabilitation effort for the flood affected millions and in alleviating poverty in the country to some extent.
IMPEDIMENTS TO STEEL MILL CASE Now on to Friday 5 November. Rejecting an appeal by state-owned Pakistan Steel Mill to stop the ongoing probe started by the Supreme Court in Suo Motu action against alleged massive corruption in the Steel Mill, estimated to amount to Rs 26 billion, the Chief Justice rebuked the defence lawyer, saying "a huge corruption of Rs 26 billion was committed in the state-owned entity and you tell us that we should halt the investigation!"
The very same court had stopped a shocking deal while Shaukat Aziz was prime minister by which Pakistan's pride enterprise was being sold for a song by the simple means of not adding the value of the huge land attached to it in the valuation made for bidding purposes.
The DG, FIA, told the court, in answer to a question, that no one had been arrested in connection with the mega corruption case and also that three heads of FIA had already been changed since the investigations began and that he too was to be moved soon. Sounds familiar?
SLIDE IN BUSINESS GOVERNANCE On the same day, a news item appeared in the press quoting a World Bank report titled "Doing Business 2011," which downgraded by eight notches Pakistan's overall ranking in one year, during the tenure of the PPP-led regime. The country has slipped to the 83rd spot in 2011 against the 75th position in 2010, on the counts of enforcing contracts, governance and management. The judiciary comes in for praise for having improved in terms of the number of cases resolved. This could obviously have been far better but for the Governments interference and obstacle creation.
FAKE DEGREE CASE: JUDICIARY HAS TO PUSH AGAIN It was reported on Saturday 6 November that the Fake degrees scandal, involving scores of our honourable elected members of Parliament, Senate and provincial assemblies (a matter of great disgrace for the country) is moving at a snail's pace due to arm twisting and delaying actions of the government.
Remember what happened to the family of Higher Education Commission (HEC) Chairman Javaid Laghari when he showed no intention of yielding to pressure on evaluation of degrees? The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) was supposed to move the courts against degrees declared fake by the PEC. The Government brought the process to a halt by not forming the new Election Commission as it was required to do under the 18th Amendment (for passing which the government never tires of taking credit but makes no move to implement its various directives).
The Supreme Court removed this obstacle by authorising the present ECP to initiate criminal proceedings against the fakers through the judicial process. On a court's question, the Attorney General said the formation of the new ECP was "under process". This several months after the passage of the 18th Amendment brings home yet again the point we are making in this column.
NIC SCAM - OBSTACLE THROUGH PROMOTION On the same day, we read the news of removal of FIA Director Zafar Qureshi from the NIC land scam case reportedly as he was about to arrest Ayaz Niazi, former head of the government-owned corporation (and allegedly reported to be very highly connected in Islamabad) in a land scam case. The change was achieved based on his "anticipated promotion to a higher function" according to the DG, FIA, his boss.
SHERSHAH BRIDGE COLLAPSE CASE: PROGRESS AT LAST!On 7 November 10, it was reported that National Highway Authority Chairman Major General Farrukh Javed (Retd) and two other high ranking former officers of NHA were arrested on the court premises when their bail applications were rejected.
They were accused in a case relating to the collapse of Shershah Bridge in Karachi in September 2007 in which 5 people were killed and several injured. The government had failed to move on the alleged crime (involved faulty construction of the bridge) for more than three years. A FIR was registered only on the orders of the Supreme Court in April 2010.
REKO DIQ MINES CASE COMES BEFORE COURT We also learnt on the same day that the Supreme Court has been moved against an impending deal of Reko Diq Gold Mines (see above). For most people the judiciary appears to be the only hope of redress on personal as well as national issues. How much more happy every Pakistani would be if both the judiciary and the executive were seen moving hand in hand to root out corruption and take the country along the path of progress and justice, alleviating thereby the misery the common Pakistani is sunk in today.
(owajid@yahoo.com)