Malik M. Ashraf<\/p>\n
It has rightly been said that islands of affluence cannot exist in oceans of poverty. It can be interpreted to mean that a system which serves the interests of an elite class while the majority of people live below the poverty line has no future and will always remain vulnerable to political instability, chaos, and upheavals. In certain cases, it might lead to an uprising dismantling the entire edifice of the elitist structure.
\nIt is indeed a matter of great shame that even after 76 years since the creation of Pakistan, nearly half of its population lives below the poverty line. The successive regimes have failed to choreograph a credible system of poverty alleviation, though they were never found lacking in giving false hopes to the teeming millions while building their own fortunes by taking advantage of the in-built avenues of corruption in the system of governance.
\nFinance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has warned that climate change and unchecked population growth are the biggest challenges facing the country that derail Pakistan\u2019s march to becoming a $3 trillion economy. He is right on the money to call them existential challenges. Pakistan is one of the seven most affected countries from climate change, which is the biggest blow to the growth of the economy. The 2022 monsoon floods submerged a third of the country, affecting 33 million people and causing $30 billion in damage. The 2025 floods displaced millions more and killed nearly a thousand, with probably greater financial losses.
\nThese damages are beyond the capacity of a country with GDP growth hovering between 2-3 per cent and a population growth rate of 2.5 per cent, which cancels out whatever development takes place, bringing the growth to almost zero per cent.
\nPakistan hardly contributes around 1 per cent to greenhouse gas emissions but is suffering enormously due to the insensitivity of the global community, particularly the industrialised nations who are largely responsible for the phenomenon of climate change, to the plight of the suffering nations. According to Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal, after the $30 billion losses due to floods in 2022, Pakistan received only $600 million and not a single dollar from the $100 billion climate fund promised to developing nations.
\nThese are indeed formidable challenges as reiterated by the Finance Minister, but he forgot to mention, or maybe deliberately avoided listing, corruption as one of the most formidable challenges facing the country. Corruption is acknowledged as a bane for socio-economic development in any society or country besides casting its debilitating impact on social and moral values.
\nWe are a corruption-ridden society without any doubt. Our system of governance, a legacy of the archaic colonial era, has in-built avenues of corruption which our rulers and bureaucracy have used to build their own fortunes. The impact of corruption at the higher echelons of the government has also had its trickle-down effect on the lowest rungs of society.
\nCorruption is generally defined as the 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 in-built avenues of corruption, graft, and entitlement. Corruption has many forms, but the major causes of concern are 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 economic progress.
\nWe have often been hearing from the rulers their resolve to eliminate corruption from the echelons of government and society as and when it suited their political interests. But the fact is that whatever accountability mechanisms they did put in place were meant to target their political opponents rather than arrange across-the-board accountability.
\nThe fact is that politicians and bureaucrats have a big stake in perpetuating the archaic colonial system of governance, which allows them to wield unchecked authority over the masses. They would never axe their own feet to change the prevalent exploitative system that breeds unimaginable avenues of corruption.
\nWe do not need a democracy that reinforces the monopoly of elite classes and landed aristocracy on political power. Unfortunately, the single-constituency system to elect public representatives to run state affairs is the main factor in perpetuating the corrupt system of governance. The expenditure involved in contesting elections is so huge that no person from the middle or lower-middle class can even think of trying his luck, and the field is left open to the elitist classes. The social structure of our society is such that the system becomes hostage to the \u2018electables\u2019 who play a great role in the making and breaking of regimes, fomenting political instability. They also blackmail the rulers to extract undue benefits from them at the expense of the masses and torpedo any attempt at reforms. So the vicious circle of corruption among the politicians, in connivance with the bureaucracy, continues unabated.
\nThe first priority should be ending the monopoly of the elite and landed classes on political power. This can be done by switching over to the proportional representation system in which people vote for parties and not individual candidates. The parties get representation in the legislatures according to the percentage of votes obtained in the elections and also form government accordingly. They nominate competent and deserving people to the legislatures. This eliminates the avenues of rigging in elections, which invariably has been the cause of political instability in the country. This will, to a great extent, also plug the avenues of political corruption.
\nThe country undoubtedly needs systemic reforms that focus on plugging avenues of all types of corruption besides saying adieu to the single-constituency system to elect our representatives. This can only be done when all political parties come on the same page in this regard by rising above their narrow political agendas and giving priority to the welfare of the masses. That is the only way to improve governance, alleviate poverty, and meet other challenges. The country will surely embark on the path of sustained economic development and the elimination of islands of poverty by effecting the above changes in the system of governance.<\/p>\n
The writer is a freelance columnist. He can be reached at ashpak10@gmail.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Malik M. Ashraf It has rightly been said that islands of affluence cannot exist in oceans of poverty. It can be interpreted to mean that a system which serves the interests of an elite class while the majority of people live below the poverty line has no future and will always remain vulnerable to political […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3489],"class_list":{"0":"post-514593","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-article","7":"tag-malik-m-ashraf"},"yoast_head":"\n