Malik Muhammad Ashraf
Corruption is generally defined as misuse of entrusted power or authority by elected politicians or appointed civil servants for private gains. It usually entails embezzlement of funds, nepotism, kickbacks, bribery as well as deliberate attempts to perpetuate a system with inbuilt avenues of corruption, graft and entitlement. Corruption has many forms but the major cause of concern are the systemic corruption and political corruption, which germinate other forms of corruption that eat into the social and economic fibre of a country besides generating social tensions and hampering its economic progress.
Political corruption occurs at the highest level of the political system, usually at the policy formulation level when politicians and state agents, entitled to make and enforce laws in the name of the people, use their position to sustain their power, status and wealth. Systemic or endemic corruption is an integrated and essential aspect of the economic, social and political system prevalent in a country, embedded in a wider situation that helps to sustain it. It is universally recognised that corruption invariably is related to lack of good governance and the degree of corruption in a society or a country depends on the level of good governance attained by a particularly country.
When I look at the painful mess that the country is in, my thoughts go back to Quaid’s presidential address to the constituent assembly of Pakistan on August 11, 1947. He 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 iron hand. I want to make it clear that I will never tolerate any kind of jobbery, nepotism. If we want to make this great state of Pakistan, happy and prosperous, we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, especially of the masses and the poor.”
Have we as a nation succeeded in doing what he thought was the duty of the government and eliminated the curse that he considered a poison and the main stumbling blocks in our way of building Pakistan as a viable and harmonious state wedded to the objectives of independence? The answer regrettably is no. We in fact have promoted and nurtured those evils and pushed Pakistan into the crucible of a precipice. No government whether military or representative made an honest effort to change the archaic colonial system of governance, which has in-built avenues of corruption. Regrettably, whatever mechanisms were put in place by the rulers smacked of political vendetta rather than genuine efforts to eliminate the curse of corruption from the echelons of the government and society.
The National Accountability Bureau established by the military dictator in November 1999 was yet another arrangement orchestrated to blackmail the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats to ensure their pliability, though it also provided them an avenue in the form of ‘plea bargain’ to retain a big chunk of the filched public money in exchange for a confession and surrender of some percentage of the booty, as agreed between NAB and the accused.
This arrangement, since its inception has been criticised as a catalyst of promoting corruption rather than tackling it. But the criticism has not been as vociferous and loud as it has become in the wake of remarks of Justice Jawad S Khawaj of the Supreme Court who termed the please bargain as ‘institutionalised corruption’. In case of the plea bargain struck by NAB with former financed secretary of Balochistan Mushtaq Raeesani and his front man,reportedly, the accused has agreed to surrender Rs.3.25 billion against the alleged corruption of Rs.40 billion. The deal has triggered a nation-wide debate on the issue. Even the interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar, and Chief Minister Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif, have joined the chorus to castigate the plea bargain.
Director General NAB while defending the plea bargain struck with Raeesani said that it was approved by the NAB Chairman and the court and under it the accused has to face all legal implications except imprisonment. He boasted that NAB had recovered Rs6 billion through plea bargain from 2012 to 2016 out of total recoveries of Rs.45.37 billion. He, however, failed to unfurl how much the national exchequer had actually lost through this arrangement. As far as the approval of the plea bargain by NAB chairman and the court is concerned, they surely have acted according to existing law. What is being emphasised by the critics is that the law that allows the plea bargain is flawed and its implementation has actually defeated the very purpose of curbing corruption among politicians and government functionaries, and that needs to be changed.
The plea bargain may not have prevented corruption and recovered the entire amount purloined by the accused persons but it invariably has proved as a good bargain for both the accused persons as well as the NAB officials involved in investigating such cases. The entire country has seen the enactment of how it works when the Bahria Town Chief, Malik Riaz released a video of a NAB official accepting money from him in exchange for going soft on inquiries against him.
The amount involved in corruption cases is so high in certain cases that it becomes very difficult for NAB to maintain the integrity of its investigators. It is feared that the accused also pays a certain amount to the NAB investigator to keep the percentage of the looted money to be returned, to the lowest, so that he can enjoy the rest of it. The loser invariably is the national exchequer. The concept of plea bargain also vitiates the spirit of Islamic system of justice under which a corrupt public functionary deserves no mercy and is liable to be punished along with recovery of the entire embezzled money.
It was right time for the government to take appropriate action in the matter. While it is true that no mega corruption scandal has been reported during the last three years and the Transparency International in its three consecutive annual reports has indicated decline in the corruption index in Pakistan which is mostly attributable to the administrative measures taken by the PML (N) government, the need for plugging the loopholes in the existing legal arrangement to curb corruption can hardly be over-emphasised. The opposition parties in the parliament must also join hands with the government to do away with the plea bargain by amending the NAB ordinance and also bringing other necessary reform in its operations as well as in regards to the mode of appointment of the chairman, which has also become controversial.
