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  #1  
Old Friday, March 16, 2012
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Our Problem is Corruption of Our Politicians
March 6, 2012
By Raja Zahid Raza

The dismal state of democracy in Pakistan, amongst many other factors, is also due to lack of self-regulating norms and transparency within the political parties. It is sad to note that political parties, despite criticism from everyone, are not ready to introduce democracy within their structure and working.
Unless these parties reform themselves by introducing fundamental changes in their working, there is no hope for sustainable democratic set-up in Pakistan. In all established democracies, political parties regularly hold elections within their ranks and files, prepare and publish their audited accounts, file tax returns, disclose names of donors before the Election Commission as well as file details with evidence of expenditures. All these elements are conspicuous by their absence in our political culture

Since long, it has been highlighted in Pakistan that the self-styled champions of accountability do not present themselves in a transparent manner. This is why they cannot inspire and convince others to follow suit.

Enjoying extraordinary privileges and perquisites, living standards of judges and generals (courtesy taxpayers’ money) create an impression that they are above the law. Politicians use this as a pretext and justify corruption in their ranks. Politicians blame the ‘system’ for all these maladies without realising that they have the main responsibility to change the system. Nothing will change unless they first bring transparency and governance within their parties.

Politicians have to act responsibly in all spheres whether in power or in opposition. Their role is pivotal for effective working of institutions of the State. Being role models, it is imperative for them to show others by their conduct, the supremacy of rule of law. If they indulge in corruption and malpractices, the entire political system becomes discredited.

Once in power favoring the near and dear and/or amassing wealth and power through unlawful means is what destroys democracy. While in power, they should demonstrate by their actions that they are custodians of public faith and are bound to work for public cause and not personal gains. Why have they failed to do so in Pakistan?

The main cause is authoritarians within parties, no respect for merit and lack of accountability. Presently, almost all political parties in Pakistan are controlled either by one man or a handful of individuals with workers showing loyalty to their chief rather than to the party’s manifesto. Obviously, in return, they expect personal favors from the chief when the party is in power.
If Pakistan has to come out of this present mess, democratisation of political parties is a must. Political life of an individual requires that he complies with all laws of the land — one demonstrative proof of it is to discharge fiscal obligations. If a politician does not pay his taxes honestly how can he expect ordinary man to do the same?

Lack of tax culture in Pakistan has its roots in the open defiance of tax laws by the rich and mighty. Not only have they kept themselves outside the tax ambit, they also take pride in telling others that tax officials dare not question them.
Article 77 of the Constitution pronounces that no tax shall be levied except by or under the authority of Parliament. If anyone commits negligence in paying taxes, he in fact, violates Article 5 which says: “Loyalty to the State is the basic duty of every citizen.” In this context, the duty to pay taxes is a Constitutional obligation. At the same time, it is the duty of the State as ordained in Article 3 to ensure “the elimination of all forms of exploitation and the gradual fulfillment of the fundamental principle, from each according to his ability to each according to his work”.

Elected members and those striving to become so, first of all, must show the voters that they are tax-complying individuals. If they fail to do so, obviously they cannot be considered eligible to contest elections. It is the responsibility of a political party to ensure that its election candidates have filed their tax returns. All existing political parties in the coming elections, before distributing tickets must obtain evidence of tax returns from the aspiring candidates. This would be a first step towards democratisation of the political culture in Pakistan.

In Pakistan, law is in existence for filing annual income/expenditure statements with the Election Commission but no party really cares about it. Authoritarianism is visible in all political parties and any dissident voice is dealt with undemocratically. In most cases, the man becomes persona non grata who in reaction either becomes a turncoat or forms a separate block.
For political parties there should be a provision in the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 making it incumbent on them to file their tax returns. Their income should be exempt from tax, provided they file returns voluntarily and present audited accounts for scrutiny.

Such provisions exist in tax laws of all the major democracies. In India, not only does this law exist [section 13A of Income Tax Act, 1961] but recently Chief Election Commissioner of India, S Y Qureshi, asked the Indian Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to scrutinise accounts submitted by political parties.

In Pakistan, it is high time to make filing of tax returns mandatory for all registered political parties, which should be scrutinised and made public by any citizen having the right to question their veracity. Donations received by parties should qualify for tax credits as they, being non-profit organisations all over the world, are considered as entities working for public purposes. In Pakistanwe have not yet promoted this idea that political parties should be exemplary non-profit organisations fully committed to further the cause of public welfare.

This idea is important from many perspectives. Once people associate themselves with a particular party having clear objectives and aims, they also extend financial support for their achievement. Meaningful participation of masses in democracy and electoral process can only be ensured if they have the right to question their leaders about use of their money.
Resistance against establishment of an independent accountability authority in Pakistanis also due to the fact that the ruling trio knows that any such body would expose their corruption. The way forward is that political parties should be forced to keep proper accounts, get them audited by reputed firms and file income tax returns. The process of filtration within the parties is a necessary step towards a transparent and democratic setup.

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  #2  
Old Sunday, March 25, 2012
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Eliminating corruption in 90 days
March 25, 2012
By Raza Rumi

The highly mediatised ‘rise’ of Imran Khan is promising because it engages the country’s largest segment of population i.e., the youth. This could potentially herald a new beginning in the political sense. This asset of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) — the ability to connect to the youth — cannot be underestimated. Furthermore, sections of the non-voting urban population are also joining the PTI bandwagon. This is a monumental development because the last time it happened was over 40 years ago, when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto captured the popular imagination in the cities.

Much has been said about the great Khan’s sympathies for the militants who are resisting ‘America’s war’ in our region. Never mind that they also kill Pakistanis, attack mosques, shrines and funerals and are in bed with a global ideology that wants to decimate the ‘un-Islamic’ Pakistani state. The odd relationship between the PTI and the self-declared defenders of Pakistan — the ragtag Islamist parties, ex-servicemen and known terrorists — has also been highlighted. I will not dwell on these issues as several commentators have indicated the dangers of this populist discourse and the larger, intrinsic relationship between populism and authoritarianism.

My real worry is that Mr Khan is yet to offer an alternative agenda. His charisma, cricket connection, philanthropic record and the use of social media are at work. When it comes to policy, the plan ahead is almost farcical. Haven’t we heard of elimination of corruption in 90 days before? Corruption, as a slogan, has been used by almost every Pakistani government to undermine political opponents. As early as the 1950s, laws to disqualify politicians were enacted.

The 1990s saw the military establishment orchestrate a ridiculous anti-corruption charade. Nawaz Sharif’s second tenure had a Himmler-wannabe as the chief of accountability, who turned anti-corruption efforts into medieval witch-hunts. Former President General Pervez Musharraf’s illegitimate rule was welcomed by the same urban middle classes, which now cheer for Imran Khan to eliminate the ‘corrupt’, old guard politicians.

Tackling corruption is not a 90-day job, for it will only result in high-powered accountability operations stuck in a dysfunctional legal system. It is a medium to long-term process involving restructuring of institutions — laws, formal and informal rules and conventions — which shape societal interaction and determine state behaviour. Pakistani politics and economics are defined by the military’s hegemony. The biggest expenditure items — defence and debt servicing — are virtually unaccountable. Has Mr Khan thought about these issues or will these disappear through ‘moral legitimacy’ — another wooly construct cited like a totem. ‘Clean’ civilians will make the khakis give up power. One has to live in wonderland to accept such postulates as even half-credible.

Similarly, have Mr Khan and his advisers considered that Pakistan’s servility to the US war machine cannot be detached from class interests of its elites, which need global markets, military equipment and unlimited supplies of ‘aid’?

Politicians, civil servants, judges and state officials are required to declare their assets according to existing laws. There are anti-corruption establishments in each provincial government and offices of national and provincial ombudsmen exist. How about looking at these laws and institutions instead of ending corruption through the ouster of individuals alone. We are told ‘clean’ men at the top will lead to a revolution. This top-down, autocratic approach with an arrogance of knowing all the technocratic solutions is most worrying.

It is not even clear how much electoral support Imran Khan’s charisma will translate into. I personally don’t want Imran Khan to fail. Khan’s failure and the absence of popular alternative narratives may make the future of democracy even more dismal. However, Khan must realise that this is not the managing of a hospital or a game of sport. Governing Pakistan involves the future of millions and restructuring of a national security state. Without achieving the latter, promising an Islamic welfare state is a cruel joke.

The Express Tribune
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Old Tuesday, April 03, 2012
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Problem of corruption
April 3, 2012
Affan Taj

CORRUPTION has haunted Pakistan since its birth. Different governments have been dislodged on the basis of such allegations and every institution, it is said, is victim to it.

Why, then, has our state apparatus failed to root out this menace?

Pakistan’s anti-corruption laws do not define corruption. Before the promulgation of the Ehtesab Ordinance, 1997, even an explanation of the term ‘corruption’ was missing from the legislative framework. The Ehtesab Ordinance explained ‘corruption and corrupt practices’ through six characteristics; it was superseded by the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO), 1999, which explains ‘corruption and corrupt practices’ through 12 characteristics.

The Supreme Court interpreted corruption in 2008 while adjudicating on a case investigated by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), as “…an act which is done with intent to give some advantage inconsistent with law and wrongful or unlawful use of official position to procure some benefit or personal gain. (The) expression corrupt practice(s) is a series of depraved/debased/morally degenerated acts” (The State Vs M. Idrees Ghauri).

The problem is that this definition is limited to government servants. It is undisputed that corruption has various forms and limiting the term to a simple definition is indeed a complex job. But if our laws do not take into account the various nomenclatures of corruption, how will the institutions enforcing those laws detect corruption?

Up until 1997, our legislatures only perceived and focused on anti-corruption legislation targeting public servants: people employed by the state, such as every officer of the police, the bureaucracy and a court of justice or land or tax official, but not an elected representative. (Commissioned officers in the military are public servants but are exclusively regulated by a special law as will be discussed later.)

The Prevention of Corruption Act 1947 (POCA) was the first anti-corruption legislation adopted by the constituent assembly. It applied only to public servants and remains in force, but defines criminal misconduct rather than corruption.

The wafaqi mohtasib’s (ombudsman) laws and provincial anti-corruption laws, such as the Punjab Employees Efficiency, Discipline and Accountability Act 2006, and the Sindh Prevention of Bribery and Corruption Act 1950, are no different.

Provincial anti-corruption laws are only applicable to public servants employed by the provincial governments and cannot be used to hold the executives of a province, during or after their tenure in office, accountable. The ombudsman’s laws suffer from a similar deficiency.

Another issue is that even within its defined parameters, provincial anti-corruption establishments do not function properly.

For example, in 2010 the office of the ombudsman Punjab, according to its annual report, received 123 complaints pertaining to the officials of the anti-corruption establishment in Punjab alone.

The Federal Investigative Agency, created by virtue of the Federal Investigative Agency Act 1974, has an anti-corruption wing which deals with certain offences relating to corruption in connection with matters concerning the federal government. But the
FIA is vulnerable to political interference.

The provincial anti-corruption establishments, the offices of the ombudsman and the FIA suffer from a further inability to proceed against certain institutions that are regulated by dedicated laws, such as medical or legal practitioners or the army.

These institutions do not define ‘corruption’. And even otherwise, Pakistan’s institutions rarely proceed against members of
their own ranks, thereby resulting in zero or rare convictions that render the institutional laws ineffective.

The problem in Pakistan is that while there are abundant anti-corruption laws, they are outdated and preclude a certain class of people or institutions from being drawn into their purview, thereby granting them a sort of implied immunity.

The Army Act 1952, for instance, does not define the word corruption or include the classification ‘corruption or corrupt practices’. Rather, it defines ‘illegal gratification’ as an offence.

Resultantly, none of our anti-corruption agencies or courts can investigate a serving army officer for alleged corruption.

Meanwhile, the Army Act provides immunity to all serving members of the armed forces from investigation, arrest, detention or trial from all other courts or investigative agencies.

The National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, was one law which brought a hitherto untouched class of people into the domain of accountability. As the SC observed in the Asfandyar Wali’s case, “For the first time, members of a hitherto untouchable class
of influential and powerful persons, not merely restricted to holders of public office, but also include bankers, businessmen, industrialists, bureaucrats, and other persons, who are involved in corruption and corrupt practices as defined in the NAB, fall within the purview of accountability in an effective and coherent manner.”

Under the NAO 1999, NAB has been conferred with unprecedented powers to investigate and prosecute cases involving corruption. It is the only accountability institute functioning somewhat effectively in this area. But NAB has its limitations. Its chairman is appointed by the president in consultation with the leader of the house and the leader of the opposition. He is therefore legally powerless to bring the president, prime minister, leader of the opposition or a provincial chief minister, even after the expiry of their service, into the domain of accountability.

Lawmakers introducing the Holders of Public Office (Accountability) Bill, 2009, to repeal the NAO 1999 believed that elected representatives or the holders of public office (i.e. people who have served as presidents, prime minister, governors etc) do not technically fall within the accountability purview of the existing laws. The bill, whose name was later changed to the National Accountability Commission Bill (NAC), was thus introduced.

Since then, however, it has been lying pending with the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Law and Justice. The proposed bill was also seen as a disguised attack on the existing NAO 1999 by proposing to replace it with the NAC Bill, thereby rendering many of the effective provisions of the law defunct.

One of the problems with Pakistan’s fight against corruption, thus, is the multiplicity of (mostly outdated) anti-corruption laws.

Moreover, our lawmakers must realise the importance of whistle-blowing laws which guarantee indemnity to a public servant or any other person exposing instances of corruption. These would give public/government servants the strength to expose corruption without fear of being persecuted by the state itself.

Furthermore, our legislatures have enacted tailor-made anti-corruption laws to please some institutions and keeping self-interest in mind. This is a criminal attitude. Then, our legislatures have not empowered anti-corruption institutions with
autonomous powers. As a result, the state and its institutions have been subjected to a lot of political interference which deters free and fair investigation.

If anything is to blame for the current helplessness against corruption, it is the insensitivity and laziness of successive legislatures in authoring weak, limited or no anti-corruption legislations. If we are to effectively root out corruption, our legislatures hold the key.

The writer is a lawyer based in Lahore.
-Dawn
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Old Wednesday, April 18, 2012
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Corruption and taxation
Jamil Nasir
Wednesday, April 18, 2012

“Revenue is the chief preoccupation of the state. Nay, more; it is the state,” Edmund Burke, the British statesman and philosopher, once said. This dictum of Burke holds for all times as it is not possible to run the state machinery without tax money. In fact, the power of the state is reflected mainly through its tax-levying power. If the state is weak, its capacity to levy and raise taxes will also be weak. Rampancy of tax evasion in a sense points towards low quality of governance and erosion of state’s legitimacy. Thus governance and tax evasion are related to each other but in inverse order i.e. if the governance is poor, tax evasion will be high and vice versa.

Unfortunately, Pakistan’s revenues are the lowest in the world in terms of tax-to-GDP ratio. Despite all rhetoric of tax reform in the last decade or so, no tangible progress is visible in major areas like broad-basing, increase in tax-to-GDP ratio and control of corruption in tax machinery. Hardly one percent of the population pays tax. This number (in percentage terms) is much smaller compared to countries of similar level of per capita income and development. Enforcement of tax laws is weak due to lack of political will at the top and capacity constraints of the tax machinery. In this context, we need a clear stock taking of the situation as to what is fundamentally wrong despite all reforms. And what should be the basic tax reform agenda that we need to pursue for improving the situation?

First of all, it is the political will that matters. Taxation is not a cakewalk as nobody wants to part away with his money, so resistance to new tax measures is always there. Without strong political will, broadening of the tax base and increasing tax-to-GDP ratio is almost impossible. But at the same time quality of tax machinery also matters as it is primarily the tax bureaucracy which translates the government will into action. If the quality is low or corruption in tax administration is rife, even the noblest of the objectives will not be achieved. Thus, the basic tax reform agenda should essentially focus on improving the quality of the tax bureaucracy and control of corruption in tax administration.

Achievement of all other tax objectives hinges on these two factors. Improving the quality of tax bureaucracy does not mean stereotyped training programmes and incremental changes in the salary structure. Basically, a drastic change in the weights of variables like seniority, competence, and integrity is required to improve the performance and productivity. This will require fundamental changes in human resource management, service structure, promotion and posting criteria, and integrity management.

The second area that needs our focus is control of corruption in the tax administration and minimising rent-seeking opportunities for the tax auditors and collectors. In order for this to be done, reforms in several key areas are needed. First of all, the compensation structure needs to be improved. Living wages should be paid at the least to tax officials. An increase by three to four times in the salaries of the tax officials may not reduce the corruption levels drastically, but the so-called justification for corruption will no longer be there. Low-level officials who involve in facilitating payments (also called speed money) do so, on the excuse of low salaries though illegal gains may be shared with the senior tax officials.

Mahesh C Prohit, in his paper on “Corruption in tax administration” writes: “In case of foreign trade taxes and other routine activities, low-level officials are also likely to be involved, sharing their illegal gains with those higher up in the chain of authority. It is these routine cases of lower-level corrupt tax practices that ultimately erode public confidence in governmental institutions. For this reason, these practices are often seen as more corrosive than abuse of power at higher levels.”

It needs to be emphasised here that corruption in tax administration does not always involve taxpayer as one of the necessary party to the corrupt act. For example, if a senior tax administrator sells a post instead of appointing the junior tax officials on the criterion of competence and integrity, the tax payer is not directly involved but corrupt act has been committed. The reforms in tax administration generally miss this point. Corruption in tax administration should not be construed in the paradigm of “tax collector-tax payer contact” only. So the point is that corruption in tax administration has got multiple dimensions and corruption cannot be rooted out unless the tax organisation reforms itself from within. Against this backdrop, procedures of selection, promotion, placement, integrity management, and performance evaluation need to be critically examined and improved to address the problem of corruption in tax administration.

Tackling corruption in tax administration means change of culture of the organization, which is certainly a Herculean task when corruption is deep-rooted. We need to put a maximum premium on integrity in such a culture otherwise efforts to root out corruption from the tax administration will be frustrated by those having vested interests to perpetuating the corrupt system. One of the IMF papers on this issue has rightly pointed out that: “organizations where corruption is endemic, honest employees may be led into corruption by the behavior of others. Corrupt employees also exert pressure when they will not accept that someone in the group should behave properly while others are engaging in corrupt practices. If senior revenue administration officials are known to engage in corrupt practices, lower-level employees have another justification to engage in similar practices. In some countries like Peru and Uganda, corruption in the tax administration was so endemic that the government closed it down and started a new one.”

Moreover, strong accountability mechanisms need to be put in place as the tax officials are rational human beings like other people. They take into account the perceived risk of detection and punishment while deciding to engage in corruption. If the risk is low due to weak accountability, they are more prone to indulge in corrupt practices. If penalty is not harsh compared with the dividends of corruption, or we have a culture of tolerance for tax frauds, or system is such that the delinquent tax employees are absolved from corruption charges sooner or later, then other employees will also be motivated to indulge in corrupt acts.

Moreover laws, regulations, and procedures need to be made more clear, simple and transparent. Tax structure need to be redesigned in a way that it is corruption-resistant. For example, tax may be fixed for small businesses operating in the informal sector, and for example those paying higher tax (say, 30 percent) compared to previous year may not be put to detailed audit scrutiny, or withholding tax regime may be further expanded. On customs side it is possible through further rationalisation of the tariff, simplifying the customs procedures, reducing steps in clearance of goods, and increasing access of the importers and their agents to assessment and valuation data.

The point is that any tax-reform agenda will fail unless fundamental reforms within the tax organisation are introduced to improve the quality of the tax bureaucracy and weed out corruption from the tax administration. Improving the quality of tax machinery and corruption control should be the item number one on any tax-reform agenda for a meaningful change towards improvement of the taxation system. It is the tax system which makes an effective state but it is the quality of bureaucracy that makes the taxation system effective. Thus, a comprehensive anti-corruption strategy that addresses both the motives and the opportunities for corruption is direly needed.

Email: jamilnasir1969@gmail.com
-The News
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Abuse as power
May 1, 2012
By Dr Faisal Bari

If you were the Prime Minister of Pakistan and your mother had applied for an electricity connection, and she was waiting for her turn to get the connection, would you help her get the connection out of turn? If you did, would you consider that to be wrong in any way? Would you consider that to be abuse of power? If you did not ‘help’ your mother, would you consider that to be a principled stand? How do you think most people in Pakistan would see this?

If you did not help your mother my guess is that most people in Pakistan would consider you to be weak and/or arrogant, and they would think that you should have helped your mother, even if it meant bending or breaking some rules. They would not understand your attempt to live by principles, that all should be treated equally, to be of any moral value, and would usually retort that others do not live and play by these rules, that you are someone special or that you have come from another planet.

A lot of people in Pakistan currently consider corruption to be an important problem in Pakistan. Imran Khan and PTI have made it to be ‘the’ main issue facing Pakistan. The argument is that if corruption could be controlled, we would be able to collect a lot more in taxes, make public expenditure more effective, slow down capital flight and in fact reverse it, get money stashed in foreign countries back into Pakistan, receive more foreign direct investment, have more domestic investment, achieve higher growth due to all of the above, and hence be able to create more jobs and tackle poverty and other deprivations more effectively. There is no doubt that corruption does hurt in all of the above ways and more. And reduction in corruption will help in achieving some of the above if not all. But what is not fully understood or appreciated is that corruption is not just the desire of the people in power to make money, there is a much more entrenched problem that we have to face.

Anyone who is in a position of power is considered to be powerful only and to the extent that he or she is able to bend rules or break rules in favour of his/her constituents. Whether he/she takes money for doing that or other favours is a secondary issue.

A policeman is powerful because he can institute false cases against you, can arrest you on false charges, and can beat you up or have you tortured. A legislator is powerful because she can get things done for you: she can get jobs for you, have postings/transfers done, can get government services for your area (roads, water projects, etc) and intermediate with the various departments of the state on your behalf and so on. It is not the fact that she can make laws that makes her powerful. A tax officer or a DMG officer is powerful for more or less the same reasons.

It is important to understand the above as a lot of people argue that having stricter laws and/or implementing them more strictly will rid us of corruption. Where this might hold, in general, it might not be the way to go if corruption is one way in which the powerful show their power. If the ability to flout the law is the way to judge how powerful a person is in our society, then it will not be possible to root out corruption by making the laws stricter. We will have to dig deeper than that.

Why are potential Senators, MNAs, MPAs willing to spend crores of rupees to be elected to have a chance to be become legislators? The salaries of these people do not justify what is spent on elections. Yes, many legislators do make a lot of money when they are in power and recoup much more than what they spend on elections. But this cannot be the motivation for all of them. In fact, even for many who make money, money is an instrumental variable. It is a way of showing their power. This partially explains why many industrialists and businessmen decide to join politics at times as well: they want to show how much power they have.

Kant had long ago postulated that as individuals and as moral beings we had to treat all other rational beings as ‘ends in themselves’ and not as means to an end. The same, I think, applies to how we think about power and democracy as well. If power refuses to come under the rule of law and if democracy only means ‘now it is my turn to be above the law’ then whether people are elected or selected, there will be little change in the lives of the majority of the people in the country. Financial corruption is just a symptom of the above or, more precisely, a manifestation of the above.

Many people think that corruption exists because those who are given powers are usually not given enough salary and so on. A policeman is given immense powers while his salary is not even enough to enjoy a lower middle income life style if he sticks to just his salary income. This might be true of a lot of lower level functionaries. But it does not explain why so much corruption is present at the higher levels? Was the Prime Minister and his family poor? Or some of the other leading politicians of the country? Or the generals or senior bureaucrats?

Corruption is definitely a constraint on our growth, economic performance, and development. But it is not just about the greed of people for making money or for making ends meet. We are embedded in a political economy where the only way to show power is through abusing the law and showing that you are above the law. The more you can do it, in more areas and more publicly, the more powerful you are. And the game is about showing how powerful you are and how you can abuse the law and be above it. Financial corruption is just one way of doing this and exhibiting it. Countering corruption will require changing the discourse on power as well. But this will, without doubt, require challenging entrenched beliefs about hierarchy in our society as well. And nothing short of at least a mental revolution, if not a physical one, can achieve that.

The writer is an Associate Professor of Economics at LUMS (currently on leave) and a Senior Advisor at Open Society Foundation (OSF). He can be reached at fbari@sorosny.org
-Pakistan Today
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Politicising corruption
May 4, 2012
Anees Jillani

In January Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani appeared in the Supreme Court in a contempt of court case. On April 26, a seven-member Supreme Court bench held the prime minister guilty of contempt for refusing to obey the court’s order to write to the authorities in Switzerland to ask them to reopen corruption cases against President Zardari.

Mr Gilani was punished till the rising of the court, for violating Article 63 (1)(g) of the Constitution that states:

“A person shall be disqualified from being elected or chosen as, and from being, a member of the Parliament, if he has been convicted by a court of competent jurisdiction for propagating any opinion, or acting in any manner, prejudicial to the …integrity or independence of the judiciary of Pakistan, or which defames or brings into ridicule the judiciary…, unless a period of five years has elapsed since his release.”

The question now is whether he will be disqualified from holding office. This will unquestionably give a new dimension to the political instability in the country.

Leaders and functionaries of the Pakistan People’s Party are trying to give an impression that the PPP has “once again” been victimised by the establishment, led by the Supreme Court. The allusion is to the conviction and hanging of former premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979 on a murder charge. He was convicted unanimously by the Lahore High Court and appeal and a review was rejected by a majority in the Supreme Court. The fact that the dissenting judges were non-Punjabi was interpreted by many in Bhutto’s home province as proof that the establishment was out to get a Sindhi leader.

Benazir Bhutto took the same line when her governments were dismissed on corruption charges in 1990 and 1996, and when she faced several cases involving corruption while she was in the opposition. Her husband, who is now president of Pakistan, was party in most of these cases. One of the major cases involved acceptance of commission from a Swiss contractor and then depositing it in a Swiss bank account. Benazir Bhutto initially denied she held this account but later acknowledged the fact when it was proved that she had used the proceeds of the account to purchase jewellery.

The Supreme Court wants the 60 million dollars in this account returned to the country. However, Zardari’s supporters do not see anything wrong with the National Reconciliation Ordinance and continue to present the corruption cases against their leaders as politically motivated and biased. PPP leaders appearing on TV have even started questioning media people about their own assets and honesty. Two wrongs do not make a right. Some members of the media may be corrupt, but how can politicians justify their own corruption on this basis?

The Gilani government, instead of writing to the Swiss authorities for the reopening of the corruption case and for returning the proceeds of the account, has been dilly-dallying since the NRO judgment. The only legal justification it constantly could comes up with was President Zardari’s enjoying constitutional immunity. Chief Justice Iftikhar Ali Chaudhry has commented a number of times that the court is not interested in convicting the president but only seeks the return of the money.

One need not be a sage to figure out as to what exactly the government is trying to do: it is simply defending the corruption proceeds. The government chose not to defend the NRO when its constitutionality was being challenged before the Supreme Court. However, the same government then filed a review petition against the Supreme Court judgment, asking it to overturn the judgment when court ordered it to write to the Swiss authorities.

The issue is not the technical part but the corruption proceeds. Political parties in Pakistan, with very few exceptions, have no ideology left and the support their leaders receive is driven more by personalities than principles. However, the actions of an honest supporter of a party defending the corruption of his leader cannot be condoned; if the leader is corrupt then his corruption should be condemned, rather than its being justified on the ground that leaders of other parties or some media barons are equally corrupt.

No one in Pakistan is questioning as to where the money has come from. The politicians do not work but they have millions of dollars in their bank accounts. And if any of these politicians ever get caught for whatever reason, then it is presented as sheer political victimisation if the accused are out of power. Again, the source of money is never questioned.

The responsibility then rests on the media to highlight this dichotomy as the public relies on its analysis for formation of opinions.

In the case of Swiss bank account the Supreme Court is acting in accordance with to a principle. One cannot challenge it legally as it is on sound footing as the insistence is on a higher moral ground. What Pakistan’s rulers have decided to do is to rely on the only option left to them: politicise it. The strategy is to raise so much dust and create so much confusion that the issue of corruption goes into the background. It is sad to see this happening, but I guess this is what we all regard as politics and democracy in this part of the world.

The writer is an advocate of the Supreme Court.
-The News
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Old Saturday, May 26, 2012
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Balancing the corruption narrative
May 26, 2012
Jamil Nasir

We should not confuse extortion with bribery, wrote Jeremy Pope, one of the founding members of the Transparency International while commenting on my article titled ‘Corruption as agency problem’. Extortion is a crime and the victim is a common man who is compelled by an extortionist to pay money, he further commented. I fully subscribe to the views of Mr Pope that extortion is a crime. In fact, extortion carries a power relationship between the extortionist and the victim. Power may be physical or it may emanate from the misuse of some legal authority.

For example, gangsters in Karachi who deprive the innocent citizens of their valuables, or collect money from the shopkeepers and businessmen, or indulge in land grabbing, or demand ransom apply physical force or threat thereof to meet their nefarious designs. It is simply through the use of physical force that such gangsters extort money from their victims. On the same analogy, the public officials who do not move unless bribed, are in fact extortionists as their act is similar to those of gangsters with the only difference that they are misusing the authority given to them under the law rather than applying the threat of physical force.

Basically, Jeremy Pope had raised the point about the demand side of corruption. In the demand-driven corruption (which is extortion) the person who is authorised for doing a certain job demands money for the service which a citizen is legally entitled to. The person who is paying is not doing so to strike a big business deal, contract or commercial transaction. He is paying (element of willingness is not there) just for expediting the provision of service, securing the issuance of a driving license, speeding up an administrative process, getting signatures on the customs documents, registering an FIR in the police station, or obtaining a copy of the court’s order from the court’s official. Such bribery (extortion) is given various names like facilitating payments, speed money or democratic corruption in the literature on corruption. It is generally a paltry amount but implications are grave. It erodes the confidence of the people in the state and its institutions.

The tolerance for such small payments emanates from various sources. First, the public employees are lowly paid and the state in a way compensates for the low salary by closing its eyes to such extortion. It is a common observation that peons, sepoys, court officials, and stenos etc openly demand money from the public and even the honest officers find themselves helpless to stop such extortion by the low-paid public employees. This tolerance has got another source i e small expenditures of the offices which are sometimes met out of such money as funds allocated in the budget for the operational expenditures of offices are generally very small compared with the requirements.

Second, cultural aspects are also involved. ‘Baksheesh’ is a very old practice in the subcontinent, so the cultural norms have given a type of acceptance to such corruption. The cultural approach to corruption postulates that corruption stems from the cultural norms that emphasise gift giving and loyalty to family (extended family) instead of rule of law. Third, we are generally oblivious to the devastating effects such type of corruption has on the legitimacy of state, governance and various economic variables.

If such payments are not discouraged, these can turn out to be a big extortion. The person who receives such money generally does not have much power of discretion in decision making but he is in a position to control or at least obstruct the procedure due to spoken or unspoken expectations of payment. A police constable may stop an innocent person on the road (if he is not riding a luxury car) for no fault and harass him for extorting money. A court official may not put your case timely to the judge to prolong the judicial process which may suit the other party.

Thus the facilitating payments are a type of extortion. Besides having damaging effects on society and governance, such payments promote a culture of legal impunity and non-adherence to the law. Such corruption is generally facilitated by opaque procedures, overregulation, undue restrictions and prohibitions. So, there is always an inherent incentive to create lengthy and cumbersome procedures. In the long run, public service delivery can become totally inefficient if this phenomenon continues unabated as the officials may not move unless paid for facilitating the provision of such service.

The endemic corruption has social costs as well. It encourages a culture of getting rich overnight. Trust in the norms like hard work and meritocracy, which are the foundations of development in the society, is eroded as has happened in our society. Thus corruption leads to an unequal and unjust society, inequitable distribution of wealth and impacts the poor the most. Thus the difference between facilitating payments and extortion becomes blurred with the passage of time. A culture of unaccountability takes root and people’s trust in the legal, administrative and judicial procedures and systems weakens.

Thus the point raised by Mr Pope that bribery is extortion and impliedly we should not hold the poor chaps responsible for their being party to such an act is relevant. But we should not miss the supply-side of the problem in our narrative on corruption. Big scams where commissions are paid, kickbacks are received and ill-gotten money is funnelled to safe havens are certainly the situations where we need to tackle the problem from the supply side. In such transactions, both parties to the crime are benefited at the expense of the government exchequer. It is only the people of the country who are the final losers. So the point is that we need to approach the corruption problem both from the demand as well as the supply side.

Tackling endemic corruption is not an easy a task. First of all, it is the leadership that matters. It is better to fix the roof first for proper house cleaning. Honest and dedicated leaders who have unflinching commitment to the cause of corruption control are a must. It is the top leadership who needs to set an example as cultural patterns flow from the top. It is also required that the action against corruption should be credible in the eyes of the people.

For example, ‘fry some big fish’ is the strategy which has been adopted in some countries but due to lack of credibility, the whole exercise ends in fiasco as the corruption agency, if not fully independent from government control, is used to discredit the opponent political leaders or buy their loyalties. “Frying the big fish” can turn out to be good strategy if the prosecuting agency is believed to be credible and independent, and the government shows its commitment by catching the fish first from its own pond and fry it.

Transparency and access to information are the other requisites for controlling corruption. People, especially the civil society, need to be engaged in the fight against corruption. The public sector organisations should abandon the tribal mode of thinking which emphasises that a person belonging to the tribe (for example to a particular service group or organisation) should be protected even if he is found involved in corruption. The organisations should put in place effective corruption control mechanisms. The processes, procedures and rules which become major sources of corruption need to be redesigned. Improving the legal frameworks for reducing time to conducting the business in the public sector and administration of justice, and enactment of whistle-blowing legislation may be important areas to work on, for reducing corruption.

The writer is a graduate from Columbia University with a degree in Economic Policy Management. Email: jamilnasir1969@gmail.com
-The News
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Transparency on Metro Bus
March 15, 2013 . 0

Transparency International (TI) has released a report saying that the Metro Bus project was completed at a cost of Rs 29.078 billion, and there were also two contracts worth Rs 1.2018 billion annually for bus supply, and operation and security. According to the report, released on Wednesday, the contracts were awarded in a transparent manner and on the basis of competitive bidding, as per the Punjab Procurement Rules 2009. One of the features of the report is its swiftness. The MoU between the Punjab government and TI was signed on February 28, with TI agreeing to report before the next election. It has done so, and with the help of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Contract Evaluation Forms, which it used to evaluate the 27 contracts awarded under this project, as well as the details of the 25 infrastructure projects accompanying it. As this was one of the main projects the PML-N intended to use in its coming election campaign, it was important that the report be available before the election. As it is, the report has come out even before the dissolution of the present assemblies.

The Shahbaz government’s political opponents had two basic points to make about the Metro Bus: it was expensive, and it was corrupt. Now that the cost has been verified by a third party, both supporters and opponents should proceed from the same figure. Then there is supposed corruption. Both allegations will probably now be hurled in the heat of the election campaign, but the PML-N will be able to answer with the report. There now remain two more schemes on which TI has signed MoUs with the Ujala Scheme, under which deserving students get solar-power kits, and the Laptop Scheme, also for students. Reports on their probity are also awaited, and as the allegations and defences on precisely these schemes are expected to be of significance in the coming election campaign, the TI report on them would be a great help to the electorate in making an informed choice.

While political parties will always criticise whatever the government does, such third-party reports limit that criticism to the utility of the project being discussed. For the debate to be meaningful, it must now shift to whether the Metro Bus service has achieved its goals. The debate on embezzlement cannot continue without questioning the Transparency’s honesty or competence.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-ne...y-on-metro-bus
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Old Friday, March 29, 2013
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Purging the default mindset

Much-trumpeted ‘supreme parliament’ is gone, leaving behind un-ending stories of corruption, default and nepotism. On Wednesday, the Election Commission of Pakistan received two lists from the National Telecommunication Corporation comprising names of 733 ex-ministers, former senators and MNAs belonging to the various political parties, including the PPP and PML-N, who have defaulted or have yet to pay their dues for availing the telephone services, notwithstanding, the big guns’ bank loans default that runs into billions. The first NTC list includes 284 former or incumbent MPs who had defaulted to the tune of Rs2.57 million up to February this year. Their telephone connections were suspended due to non-payment of dues. Second NTC list claims that 449 former ministers and legislators also owe outstanding arrears of Rs9.56 million. Unfathomed sadness is that the rich get away with public money more often than not and digest it with an ease that a common man even cannot think of. The reported default of the MPs stands around Rs 12.13 million. People like Dr Nadeem Ehsan, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Faisal Karim Kundi, Qamar Zaman Kaira, Nadeem Afzal Chan, Bushra Rehman, Anwar Alam Khan, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Mian Manzoor Wattoo, Firdous Ashiq Awan, Faiz Taman, Samina Khalid Ghurki, Rana Muhammad Ishaq, Ali Nawaz Mehr, Ms Tahira Lateef, Zulfiqar Gondal, Aftab Sherpao, Mohabbat Khan Marri, Yaqoob Nasir and Jaleel Ahmad, who had been named in the list, pay off this amount with a fit of fingers to come clean before the Returning Officers. The Constitution under Article 63 bars all those who failed to clear arrears within six months or they carry a default of Rs 10,000.

The most of the defaulters of utility bills, banks and other financial institutions, aspiring to contest the next election, will soon deposit their arrears -indeed it is not a big issue. Will it change the mindset of big ones who care the least for paying their outstanding dues to the organizations that they deal with in term of their finances, the answer is yes if the relevant authorities exercise their powers independently without taking the outside influence into account. Once a highly influential defaulter like former Prime Minister Raja Peraiz Ashraf, who is facing a looming disqualification in the wake of the Capital Development Authority’s default since 1994, is punished and barred from future assignments by the apex court. Such punishment will help purge the dirty mindset prevailing amongst the rich and influential politicians.
As every Pakistani believes that the corruption is, indeed, going on in the country unabated but the record of the recovery of the funding extended to the poor does not substantiate the statement rather to the total surprise of many, over 90 per cent of the poor are neat and clean in dealing with their financial institutions or in paying their utility bills.

It is only the rich and influential people who run amok with the money they owe. The Election Commission of Pakistan, having complete support of the people and institutions that matter the most, must come down hard on the defaulters irrespective of their political affiliation and their stature and esteem. Such an act will lay foundation for clean politics in the future political setup.

http://www.thefrontierpost.com/category/46/
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