Daily Times

Corruption is not a new phenomenon. Arthashastra written by Kautilya has discussed the issue some two thousands year ago, and nearly seven hundred years ago Dante declared that bribers will be placed in the deepest part of Hell. Shakespeare gave corruption a prominent role in some his plays while the American Constitution made bribery one of two explicitly-mentioned crimes which could lead to the impeachment of a US president. However, the degree of attention currently paid to corruption is unprecedented and nothing short of extraordinary. In many countries governments have fallen because of accusations of corruption, prominent politicians including presidents and prime ministers have lost their official positions. Even in Pakistan governments or the whole political class have been replaced on corruption charges. Generally, corruption affects us all. It threatens sustainable economic development, ethical values and justice. Furthermore, it destabilizes our society and endangers the rule of law. It undermines the institutions and values of our democracy. Many acts of corruption deprive our citizens of their constitutional and their human rights.

The degree of attention now paid to corruption leads naturally to the question of why. Why so much attention now? Is it because there is more corruption than in the past? Or is it because more attention is being paid to a phenomenon that had always existed but had been largely, though not completely, ignored? The answer is not obvious, and there are no reliable statistics that would make possible a definitive answer. However, several arguments can be advanced that suggest that corruption is simply attracting more attention now than in the past.

We have witnessed that the end of the Cold War has stopped the political hypocrisy that had made the decision makers in some industrial countries ignore the political corruption that existed in some countries. As long as the country is in the right political camp, there is a tendency to overlook obvious cases of high level corruption. But the effects of corruption are spoiling the core of society which could lead us to a disastrous end.

The corruption is reflected in many dimensions including political, economic, social and environmental as we can feel effects of wrongdoings. In political sphere, corruption impedes democracy and the rule of law. In a democratic system, public institutions and offices may lose their legitimacy when they misuse their power for private interest. Corruption may also result in negative consequences such as encoring cynicism and reducing interest of political participation, political instability, reducing political competition, reducing the transparency of political decision making, distorting political development and sustaining political activity based on patronage, clientelism and money, etc. Corruption is said to have been factors for the down fall of past regimes byway of undermining the legitimacy of the governments and weakening their structures, reducing productivity, hindering development, worsening poverty, marginalizing the poor, creating social unrest and then to their downfall.

The key ingredients in any incident of corruption relate to accumulation of assets disproportionate to known income, as well as acceptance of “undue” favors. A public servant is supposed to be a “custodian” of public interest — it is his duty to speak out to protect public interest when the occasion demands. The tribe of civil servants who are basically “honest”, but accepts harmless wrongdoing of their colleagues without protest, is growing. This section should speak and raise their voices against corrupt colleagues and exhorts each other to stand up when they see damage to public interest. There is no system like collective accountability of any department because we lack democratic culture in every field of life, there must be a platform in each department where likeminded government servant could raise their voice against any wrongdoing within the department.

There is nothing illogical or unconstitutional in demanding that a senior civil servant must be a vigilant protector of public interest. Is it only commission of wrong-doing which will be punished, but not omission to stand up when required? To remain silent on the issue of corruption in a department or even in society is as damaging as the corruption itself. In most departments, the corruption is institutionalized and share of every bribe reaches higher levels. A beat policeman, a traffic inspector or a passport official when caught red handed, they get away even without registration of a case. The obvious fact is, our investigating agencies are themselves corrupt, are amenable to political “direction”, indeed are “caged parrots”. There is a need to initiate a campaign to clean up these agencies. The corrupt officials had defanged the legal anti-corruption instruments. It is like asking a fox to guard the chicken coop.

The economic effects of corruption can be categorized as minor and major. However, both in one way or the other have serious impact on the individual community and country. First and foremost, corruption leads to the depletion of national wealth. It is often responsible for increased costs of goods and services, the funneling of scarce public resources to uneconomic high profile projects at the expense of the much needed projects such as schools, hospitals and roads, or the supply of potable water, diversion and misallocation of resources, conversion of public wealth to private and personal property, inflation, imbalanced economic development, weakling work ethics and professionalism, hindrance of the development of fair in market structures and unhealthy competition there by deterring competition. Large scale corruption hurts the economy and impoverishes entire population.

In Social sphere, corruption discourages people to work together for the common good. Frustration and general apathy among the public result in a weak civil society. Demanding and paying bribes becomes the tradition. It also results in social inequality and widened gap between the rich and poor, civil strife, increased poverty and lack of basic needs like food, water and drugs, jealousy and hatred and insecurity. If you’re actually trying to be a good law-abiding citizen, you pay your bribes and you end up even poorer than before. Bribes suck a significant share of the poor’s income.

As our cities growing very fast, new layers of administration appear for which no code or rule has been really established yet. We have a tendency in the past to shift from one system to another. It is hoped that the transition of democratic system is in final stages. Because, transitions are always a good time for corruption, the social rules are blurrier as the law evolves and the society changes. It takes time for a routine to take root. The biggest danger is that by not tackling this problem soon enough, corruption will become the routine and the norm. In a way it’s already happened. And corruption has already become a major obstacle to investment in Pakistan.

The solution is not in diluting our laws, emaciated and ineffective as they already are. The answer is to clean up our investigating agencies by removing deep rooted corrupt officials, and speed up the legal procedures. Equally, the political will, already amply demonstrated in cleaning up decision-making processes at the Centre, needs to be extended to the local governments. Anyways, we can’t get away by simply saying no to corruption, we need a resolute and concrete approach by strengthening our anti-corruption departments.

The writer can be reached at malikmasud@hotmail.com