Siberian Tiger for Little Shariff,
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Our past experiences with democracy have been tangled up almost inextricably with experiences of corruption. We had hoped this time would be different. It seems though that we are not to be so fortunate. Indeed, many of Pakistan’s present day problems can be linked back to the fact that successive rulers have been more concerned with lining their own pockets rather than meeting the needs of people desperate for good governance. Now, a detailed report in this paper lists the manner in which key national institutions are being destroyed by poor management, nepotism and in some cases at least the theft of wealth from them. These giants include Pakistan Steel, PIA and the National Bank of Pakistan. The tales of how these bodies have been destroyed is shocking. In many ways the stories are microcosms of the state of Pakistan as a whole. Dishonest practices have stripped it of assets, leaving behind only a hollow, brittle shell which could fall apart under any kind of pressure.
Although the report confirms our worst fears, very little of what has been said is completely new. We are all aware, in one capacity or the other, of how heavily our politicians are involved in robbery. It is true that in some cases this may extend only to extending favours to cronies or cramming already over-staffed organizations with new employees recruited on the basis of nepotism. Such acts of loyalty to political allies amount to disloyalty to the nation as a whole.
Our country is, almost literally, being eaten away from within and destroyed. The new report simply goes to confirm our worst fears and give weight to floating rumours about wrongdoing. The real question is, what is to be done? The so-called ‘accountability’ attempts of the past led nowhere at all. In most cases the organizations set up to bring the corrupt to justice simply became means of political victimization. Today, the NRO protects past acts of dishonesty. The fact that the recent Supreme Court judgment has opened it up to political scrutiny will raise fear in some places. Some good may come of this.
But at a wider level we need citizens’ groups to lobby on the issue of corruption and on the need to save key national institutions. Each of these has the capacity of delivering if it is competently run and honestly managed by professionals. In our country we also have the expertise to do this. What we need is the political will to move in this direction. Each of us has a duty to play a role in this and to demonstrate, as has happened in the past, that the power of people can truly achieve change for the better. We need to save our country. There can be no bigger rallying point than this.
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