Daily Times

Corruption is a cancer destroying the system in Pakistani society. It is a fatal disease that is eating up our system slowly but steadily as termites eat wood. It is a source of inequality in society and an obstacle in the way of sustainable and democratic development. It is therefore the need of the hour to fight this lethal malignancy.

After 65 years since it came on the map of the world, Pakistani society has remained susceptible to develop, promote and implement a cohesive and comprehensive value system of its own, which reflects its social, cultural, economic and environmental conditions. If we have to end social evils, especially corruption from our society, we have to teach our youth to stay away from this cancer. Unfortunately, we have become a nation where people in power including politicians, civil-military bureaucrats, civil society, religious clerics and businessmen are busy in some degree of corruption.

Rule of law is overruled by the rule of the mafia in our society. Different ones like the oil mafia, the power theft mafia, sugar mafia, drug mafia, wheat mafia and land-grabbing mafia are promoting this fatal cancer of corruption in our society. Rule of law is disregarded on a daily basis. No one seems to be ready to work for the betterment of this country. Keep aside notorious departments like the police and lower judiciary, people are even scared to interact with institutions like hospitals and schools due to emerging seeds of favouritism and nepotism, which are merely different kinds of corruption.

We need to change the attitude of society towards corruption as was done by our forefathers. On August 11, 1947, addressing the First Constituent Assembly, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah had said, “One of the biggest curses from which India is suffering, I do not say that other countries are free from it, but, I think our condition is much worse, is bribery and corruption. That really is a poison. We must put it down with an iron hand.”

Fighting white-collar crime is not as easy as it is presumed. White-collar crimes should not be seen like street crimes as they are entirely different in nature. An investigator has to develop and analyse all links related to a corruption case covering all its aspects, including the financial trail and assets in the name of the accused or his dependents, and even in the names of the ‘nameless’.

Our society has to focus on elimination of criminal intent, which is a prerequisite for a civilised society where people work for the common good of humanity. We can gauge the probability of this criminal intent if we really want to purge this menace from our society. But what about our higher echelons and people in power who work with wilful blindness just to get perks and privileges of their own choice and do not want to bring the system on the right track? To remove the menace, we as a nation need to work with sagacity to achieve political, civil, economic, social, cultural rights, social justice and peace for our citizens. There is a need to include lessons on corruption-related themes in the curricula to create abhorrence against the menace.

A serious effort needs to streamline existing systems to empower the regulatory framework. The lack of coherence in policy making at higher as well as at lower level has long been an obstacle to work for this national cause. We just give examples of developed countries like the UK, Turkey, China and other countries but do not want to streamline our systems and only blame one another. We have to take steps in the right direction to curb corruption otherwise mere sloganeering will not serve the purpose.

There are many discrepancies in the laws that need to be addressed, e.g. various provisions with words like ‘good faith’, ‘eminent professional’, ‘sufficiently qualified’, ‘substantial experience’, ‘public interest’ and much more. We do not have or have fewer things for the general public being ultimate stakeholders for whom these laws are made. No one wants to talk about it and except for a few individuals, no one has ever tried to work on it. We have to change our priorities to get positive results and it needs to be done in a purely professional way. We have to work for the best interests of the public if we want to bring a positive change in our society.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB), being the apex anti-corruption body of the state, is trying to diminish this cancer in society. A full-fledged separate division (Awareness and Prevention Division) has been set up whose mission is “to support public sector organisations and other stakeholders in instituting macro and micro level preventive measures against corruption through systematic improvement.” In the light of the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999, this division is mandated to examine the existing rules and regulations of any stakeholder and give workable recommendations for their improvement. We need to re-engineer our systems. We need to strengthen such activities in Pakistan otherwise this menace will destroy our next generations.

Note: The views presented in the article are the writer’s own and do not represent NAB

The writer is working as media and public relations officer with NAB. He tweets at @irfanchaudhri and can be reached at irfanchaudhri@gmail.com