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No limits to corruption?
Dissenting note
Friday, November 27, 2009
Dr Masooda Bano
Pakistan has now for long become a country where there is no sense of proportion left. There are heart-wrenching stories of misery and absolute desperation. The women who died in Karachi last Ramazan in a bid to get free bags of flour reflect one aspect of that desperation. As do the daily reminders of the high level of absolute poverty, which is now breaking the myth that everyone in Pakistan at least gets enough to eat. Further, the photographs and stories of children and old people struggling to get food in the camps set up for refugees displaced by the military operations are a reminder of the level of desperation marking the lives of ordinary Pakistanis.
Yet, it is in the same country where the majority are living in misery that one also so frequently reads about such high levels of exploitation of state resources by the civilian, military and bureaucratic elite that it makes one wonder if the elite have a conscience at all.
Recently, the PPP top leadership has been under media scrutiny for some of these big deals and concessions. President Zardari has been under the spotlight for allegedly benefiting by $4 million in a submarines deal with the French. However, he is not alone. In the same deal, the military supposedly got a kickback of over $49.5 million. Before the public could swallow this, the details of the individuals who would have benefited under the NRO are proving the extent of the exploitation of state resources and power by the civilian bureaucracy and the political elite.
On top of it all is the case of the wife of Prime Minister Gilani. Whether or not she benefited from the NRO, the issue is why, in the first place, was she able to secure Rs200 million from the Zarai Taraqqiati Bank Limited? A case settled by "wilful default" where she got free by paying as little at Rs45.521 million while the principal of Rs200 million had swelled to Rs570 million as non-payment of instalments spanned a decade. How could such a large amount be settled for Rs45.521 million?
Compare this with the small loans taken by ordinary people for personal or commercial reasons from the banks and how they are chased for every little penny, not just of the interest due but also the principal. In this case, the individual does not even pay one-fourth of the principal amount, forget about the interest, and the case is considered settled. What kind of a deal is this and who gives the state agencies the authority to settle such deals, which clearly benefit the individual at the cost of the public interest?
After all, the over Rs150 million that Mrs Gilani has failed to pay back belonged to the Pakistani public (forget the Rs370 million she also owes in the form of interest). This money would surely have been better spent on the state schools that need desperate attention or the public hospitals that fail to cure. But, instead, the state structure, the military even more so, is so unaccountable that such horrific levels of corruption and exploitation are carried out without the elite's conscience being pricked and without any cost to social and political influence.
Of course, Mrs Gilani is not the only one to benefit from such exploitation of state resources. Many of the current senior-level appointees in the PPP have reaped similar benefits, and so have leaders of most other political parties, minus the Tehrik-e-Insaf.
However, it is more disappointing in the case of Mrs Gilani because, whatever one might say about the performance of the current PPP government, one has to admit that Prime Minister Gilani has on the whole come across during this period as a reasonable individual. Not a person dynamic enough to lead reforms, but one wise enough to minimise the damage of some of the controversial political plans that Mr Zardari or Rehman Malik have been keen to push. When even he gets implicated in a case like this, it shows how widespread the problem is.
The problem now is that the culture of corruption and exploitation has become so widespread within the political and military elite and the civilian bureaucracy that anyone who enters this circle loses the sense that taking such undue advantages is a serious crime. Murder is not the only major crime. This exploitation of state resources that makes the state incapable of delivering the basic goods to the public is actually responsible for the death and misery that surrounds Pakistanis on a day-to-day level.
Only the introduction of a very harsh system of punishments for anyone proven guilty can cleanse the Pakistani governance structure of this systemic corruption. Allowing for easy settlements, as introduced under the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) of Mr Musharraf only encourages people to embezzle more.
The writer is a research fellow at the
Oxford University. Email: mb294@hotmail.com
No limits to corruption?
Dissenting note
Friday, November 27, 2009
Dr Masooda Bano
Pakistan has now for long become a country where there is no sense of proportion left. There are heart-wrenching stories of misery and absolute desperation. The women who died in Karachi last Ramazan in a bid to get free bags of flour reflect one aspect of that desperation. As do the daily reminders of the high level of absolute poverty, which is now breaking the myth that everyone in Pakistan at least gets enough to eat. Further, the photographs and stories of children and old people struggling to get food in the camps set up for refugees displaced by the military operations are a reminder of the level of desperation marking the lives of ordinary Pakistanis.
Yet, it is in the same country where the majority are living in misery that one also so frequently reads about such high levels of exploitation of state resources by the civilian, military and bureaucratic elite that it makes one wonder if the elite have a conscience at all.
Recently, the PPP top leadership has been under media scrutiny for some of these big deals and concessions. President Zardari has been under the spotlight for allegedly benefiting by $4 million in a submarines deal with the French. However, he is not alone. In the same deal, the military supposedly got a kickback of over $49.5 million. Before the public could swallow this, the details of the individuals who would have benefited under the NRO are proving the extent of the exploitation of state resources and power by the civilian bureaucracy and the political elite.
On top of it all is the case of the wife of Prime Minister Gilani. Whether or not she benefited from the NRO, the issue is why, in the first place, was she able to secure Rs200 million from the Zarai Taraqqiati Bank Limited? A case settled by "wilful default" where she got free by paying as little at Rs45.521 million while the principal of Rs200 million had swelled to Rs570 million as non-payment of instalments spanned a decade. How could such a large amount be settled for Rs45.521 million?
Compare this with the small loans taken by ordinary people for personal or commercial reasons from the banks and how they are chased for every little penny, not just of the interest due but also the principal. In this case, the individual does not even pay one-fourth of the principal amount, forget about the interest, and the case is considered settled. What kind of a deal is this and who gives the state agencies the authority to settle such deals, which clearly benefit the individual at the cost of the public interest?
After all, the over Rs150 million that Mrs Gilani has failed to pay back belonged to the Pakistani public (forget the Rs370 million she also owes in the form of interest). This money would surely have been better spent on the state schools that need desperate attention or the public hospitals that fail to cure. But, instead, the state structure, the military even more so, is so unaccountable that such horrific levels of corruption and exploitation are carried out without the elite's conscience being pricked and without any cost to social and political influence.
Of course, Mrs Gilani is not the only one to benefit from such exploitation of state resources. Many of the current senior-level appointees in the PPP have reaped similar benefits, and so have leaders of most other political parties, minus the Tehrik-e-Insaf.
However, it is more disappointing in the case of Mrs Gilani because, whatever one might say about the performance of the current PPP government, one has to admit that Prime Minister Gilani has on the whole come across during this period as a reasonable individual. Not a person dynamic enough to lead reforms, but one wise enough to minimise the damage of some of the controversial political plans that Mr Zardari or Rehman Malik have been keen to push. When even he gets implicated in a case like this, it shows how widespread the problem is.
The problem now is that the culture of corruption and exploitation has become so widespread within the political and military elite and the civilian bureaucracy that anyone who enters this circle loses the sense that taking such undue advantages is a serious crime. Murder is not the only major crime. This exploitation of state resources that makes the state incapable of delivering the basic goods to the public is actually responsible for the death and misery that surrounds Pakistanis on a day-to-day level.
Only the introduction of a very harsh system of punishments for anyone proven guilty can cleanse the Pakistani governance structure of this systemic corruption. Allowing for easy settlements, as introduced under the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) of Mr Musharraf only encourages people to embezzle more.
The writer is a research fellow at the
Oxford University. Email: mb294@hotmail.com
No limits to corruption?
