On the same day, a national assembly standing committee on water and power expressed grave concern over the use of sub-standard steel in the Ghazi Brotha Hydropower Project (GBHP) that reportedly caused a loss of Rs 80 billion to the national exchequer.
According to a report published on the same day in a national daily, the NAB Intelligence Wing recovered Rs 40 million from accused Major (retd) M. A. Lodhi. This episode has raised a question in the minds of ordinary Pakistanis about the role of NAB in combating corruption. Many are of the view that this institution has saved the mighty and grabbed those who refused to share the ill-gotten wealth.
The NAB played a pivotal role to secure "political allegiance" for the rulers of the day from a number of politicians of opponent political parties, notably PPP and PML (N).
Interestingly, while a four-day seminar on "addressing domestic and transnational corruption: meeting international standards" started in Islamabad on 14th February, organised by NAB in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Organisation Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Imran Khan, former cricketer and Chairman of Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), said that the government has "put an end to the issue of corruption by appointing corrupt people on higher posts".
A leading lawyer of Karachi, Yawer Farooqi, speaking at a seminar 'Understanding of Accountability Laws in Pakistan', organised by the Karachi Income Tax Bar Association on the same day observed that "from a number of proceedings it seems as if the National Accountability Bureau has been pursuing process of selective accountability.
He referred to two federal ministers, Faisal Saleh Hayat and Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, who were under investigation and references were pending against them when they were inducted into the federal cabinet.
Yawer was of the opinion that the whole process of accountability got sidelined and the ruling clique when required the requisite numbers to win majority in parliament resorted to political expediency and as a "result: the same people against whom corruption cases are pending found place in the policy-makers' good books". He said the government inducted faces which were questionable and against whom references were pending in the NAB. "This is not accountability", he concluded. Yawer raised the following pertinent questions about the establishment of NAB, its role and conduct:
1. Cases are numerous where accused were tortured, abused, and humiliated to extract information from them or to get their confessional statements.
2. Violation of human rights and denial of access to accused persons seeking help from proper judiciary is against the basics of the dispensation of across-the-board justice.
3. NAB Ordinance is a breach of constitutional provisions relating to fundamental rights. Denying arrested persons the right of due process of law and detaining them for a period longer than that is provided in the Criminal Procedure Code and stripping politicians of their political rights are definitely draconian steps.
4. Amendment in the NAB Ordinance in February 2000 shifting the burden of proof on the accused is violative of accepted norms of human dignity and international standards of justice.
5. The NAB chairman has the sole authority to decide in cases of bail, withdrawal of cases or continuing with legal process. The absolute powers of the chairman are in contradiction with the principal of justice dispensed through superior judiciary.
6. The system and procedure of plea bargain is highly questionable and that cases are reported where the plea bargain was reached at through torturous means. He cited the case of Sultan Lakhani in support of his argument.
Yawer Farooqi also dwelt at length on the power-clipping of the judiciary through NAB laws and talked about the assertion by the judiciary in a few cases and regaining lost power. He criticised powers of the NAB chairman, procedure for his appointment and removal. He questioned the wisdom of keeping armed forces away from the ambit of the NAB laws.
In his view, the pretext that the armed forces have their own system of accountability and, therefore, are outside its ambit is not appealing. He said that NAB should dispose of cases within 30 days as is required by NAB laws.
"However, the reality is entirely different," he added. Farooqi said that cases have begun to pile up and there would be overcrowding of cases after some time. He said: "NAB must also think of seeking conviction from record and not from the testimony of approvers against whom reference may has been pending.
It is shameful that in the face of these startling realities, the institutions like the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Organisation Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) are providing support to the NAB.
Yawer was of the view that encouraged by the work being done by the NAB a new judicial system through the establishment of Federal Court is in the offing. He looked at this court with suspicion and said that the appointment of judges seemed attractive and alluring.
The tenure of the Federal Court Judge is till age 68. It is more than the retiring age of a judge of the Supreme Court - 65 years. A retiring high court judge at 62 would be keen to be absorbed for another six years. A retiring judge of the Supreme Court at 65 will look forward to another three years. And more so, grade 21 officers can be appointed judges of the Federal Court with post equivalent to the post of a high court judge.
He said the proposed Federal Court would have its laws to hold people accountable for their crimes.
The issues raised by Yawer are of extreme public importance. It is an undeniable fact that corruption has increased in our society with the every passing year and the claims of the government that it is committed to uproot this menace is just an eye wash.
Unfortunately Pakistan has become a place where rampant and institutionalised corruption has become a way of life. In tandem with this silent conspiracy is the fact that the laws against the racketeers are usually not enforced and if they are, the penalties are laughable (the NAB's handling of Mansoorul Haq case is a classic example).
In our society, suddenly everything seems to have become a racket. The young, enthusiastic Pakistani standing at the edge of adulthood gets his first taste of addiction through leaked papers, large-scale cheating and capitation fees. A citizen wants to get his income-tax refund, the income tax officer has to be tipped.
He wants a telephone connection, somebody in the department must be paid. If the property has to be transferred, the lowly clerk who mechanically processes papers needs gratification. Licences and electricity connections for business and industries, bank loans for villagers, medicines for the poor, irrigation water for the cultivators, the appointment of a patwari (a junior revenue officer) or inspector in customs -- the ubiquitous price tag is there.
Laudable schemes like proprietary rights for katchi abadis (slums) or rural tube-wells eventually go away with contractors or intermediaries taking their slice while the poor are only left with unfulfilled hopes.
In every-day life, there are many glaring examples of how corruption has become institutionalised. Take the business of buying a car. Why the locally-assembled cars are selling at premium? Who is making money in this whole game? Why Pakistanis are forced to buy decade old models at exorbitant prices in the name of protecting local manufacturers. Are they not remitting money abroad through the mechanism of transfer pricing? Cars can now only be legally imported (sic) against foreign exchange as gifts. But anyone wanting to buy a foreign-manufactured car, say, a Toyota, Mazda, Sunny, Accord or Mercedes, could go to any dealer and pay in rupees.
The dealer will organise the payment in foreign currency, fix the 'gift' papers required and clear it through Customs. He will charge his 20 per cent premium for doing the dirty work and send price rocketing. And Pakistan streets are flooded with new foreign cars, each imported against hard currency.
On the clear, metalled highway from Lahore airport, in the unending line of spanking new bungalows, one can see the emergence of a society flush with money. The dazzling new suburb of Defence had not been there before 1977. The story of its emergence is shrouded in mystery since the days of the Zia's regime.
Under the shadow of martial law, many in uniform who found favour with the government were given the land at throwaway prices and this practice continues till today.
Money, from whatever source it comes, is the catchphrase in our society, all kinds of it: old money, new money, Gulf money, foreign money, American money in exchange for joining war on terrorism(sic), money from heroin smuggling and 'black' money (which one can 'whiten' now by 'remitting' it through normal banking channel!) You just need to go to a licensed money exchange company, pay it the premium and telegraphic transfer will be arranged in your account.
A very simple way of money laundering and no questions will be asked even by the tax people [section 111(4) of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 gives full protection to such sham transaction].
And the proof of its being spent is available everywhere: in the ostentatious sprawl of new urban development, in the gleaming rows of foreign cars on the streets, in the smugglers' markets brimming with the latest in foreign electronic gadgetry and in the shops crammed with foreign goods.
The chief preoccupation of this nation is money. And how to make it fast. Food, drink, clothes, cars and videos are a matter of almost obsessive interest. Everybody is dying for living lavishly.
This mad race for money and lavish living explains why the society as a whole is indifferent to corruption. "How do you make your money"? I asked a young industrialist from Karachi. "Easy," he replied, describing his own success story: "We import everything and what is required is a few contacts in the government. If you can fix a few deals you can sit back and enjoy it for the rest of your life."
A dangerous result of all this activity is that in our society rights have become privileges and privileges have become rights. The public has a right to services like education, health, transport, etc, etc -- instead, the system behaves as if it is offering a privilege.
The public servant is duty-bound to serve the public -- instead he behaves as if it is inconvenient to do so. Most people working for the state are no longer interested in performing their job but in finding ways to extract a premium from the hapless citizen. The premium or, more accurately, bribe is now an accepted practice.
Tragically, it has become a free for all and laws that are designed to prevent it fall by the wayside. The general attitude is of helpless resignation, an acceptance of the defeatist principle that if one is to survive one must play the game. It then becomes dangerously akin to the law of the jungle where the fittest survive, the weak fall by the wayside, and the predators rule.
The darkest side of the picture is that the persons who are capable of checking this distortion, the politicians and bureaucrats, are unlikely to oblige: for it would sever their financial lifelines.
Those who spend huge amounts of money in general elections cannot afford to counter this menace. Also, unrealistic tax laws have encouraged a burgeoning uncontrollable underground economy which is now responsible for institutionalising racketeering.
Various inquiry commissions were set up in the past to probe the causes of corruption. What they suggested, nobody remembers. The latest development in this direction is announcement by successive governments of anti-corruption committees (headed by zila nazims) comprising elected representatives of the people!!
It doesn't take a genius to know how these elected representatives use their position to get favours from the public servants in matters of transfers and appointments of their relatives or acquaintances. How effectively they can check corruption in government departments is highly questionable.
Obviously, if the system is not to sink into greater and greater chaos, corrective action must be taken before Pakistan finds itself in the unenviable status of a corrupt banana republic (some think we have already achieved this status!). And the starting point is the clear recognition of the role of the State. It should devote its energies to enforcing the laws which protect the public from cheats and racketeers rather than reinforcing the system which encourages them.
This requires a bold and clean leadership which restrains the ballooning state and proclaims this unpalatable truth, and sets standards for the rest of the citizenry. Unless such a leadership emerges no positive results can be achieved in fighting corruption no matter how many seminars are organised by the NAB with money provided by foreign donors!