On the eve of 65th Independence Day of the two countries when the Indian parliament is in search of a third-generation remedy to cure obstinate contagious disease of corruption and the masses of our neighbouring state are promising to strike down the hydra-headed monster, the voices for ruthless accountability get but frosty reception by Pakistan’s political elite.
Though, the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), by reducing the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to a dysfunctional body, disobeying Supreme Court orders under one excuse or another, employing the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for vested interests of a few influential ones and now trying to create hurdles in way of smooth functioning of Public Accounts Committee (PAC) as well as the office of the Auditor-General of Pakistan (AGP), has exposed its disinclination towards foolproof accountably mechanism. Similarly, the role of other political parties like the PML-Q, PML-N, PML-Likeminded, MQM, ANP and others, in terms of their sincerity to curb menace of corruption, could in no way be termed as ‘admirable’. These parties, for their mutual interests and political shares, performed an apparently formidable task of getting 18th amendment constitutional bill passed by the parliament, but despite the lapse of more than three years, they failed to reach an agreement on the proposed National Accountability Commission (NAC) that can undertake the mammoth task in a transparent manner.
Unfortunately, there are signs that these political parties would finalise the draft legislation for NAC in near future in an environment where the PPP and the PML-N even could not sort out the differences on whether accountability would start from 1947 or 1985 and whether the proposed commission should be empowered to hold military men accountable or not. The ‘politics of reconciliation’ has engulfed principles of morality. The best demonstration of this phenomenon was witnessed a few days back when the last man (Mushahid Hussain) in the PML-Q ranks, who opposed the PPP-PML-Q power-sharing deal and also termed ‘Luto te Phutto’ (escape after looting) as the motto for the PPP government, reconciled with President Zardari and since then has found no fault in the government being jointly run by Zardari, Gilani and Shujaat.
The MQM, whose supremo Altaf Hussain once asked men in khakis to come forward to wipe out corruption and bad-governance from the country, is so sincere with accountability that it even does not allow the Public Accounts Committee of Sindh Assembly to review audit objections of the local governments of the Musharraf’s regime. The MQM’s opposition is apparently on the grounds that its men were at the helm of affairs in Karachi and Hyderabad when the local government system introduced by the former dictator was in place. Amid the controversy between the government and opposition on under-reading accountability bill and on the name of the new NAB chairman, which according to constitution be appointed after consultation between the prime minister and the opposition leader, accused persons are getting acquitted from the accountability courts as the dysfunctional NAB possesses but little powers of prosecution. The disagreement over the NAB chairman’s name between Gilani and Nisar has proved another NRO for the persons who had lost their hopes when the apex court had scrapped notorious ordinance of Musharraf.
PAC Chairman Ch Nisar Ali Khan has also threatened to quit ‘if the government does not stop creating hurdles in way of smooth functioning of PAC’. He said there were jitters in power circles as the parliamentary watchdog was all set to take audit reports pertaining to the financial years of sitting regime ie 2008-09 and 2009-10. Validating his apprehensions towards the government’s motives, Nisar, who is receiving plenty of press coverage due to his differences with the Sharifs nowadays, said despite the passage of two months of sending a letter to the Planning Commission and others for initiating action against the three retired generals involved in the NLC mega scam, the government had not moved forward even an inch to bring the accused to the books. The startling revelations of corruption and embezzlement in the government organisations in the audit reports pertaining to the accounts of financial year 2009-10 (the second financial year of incumbent regime) too could not move the parliamentarians from both side of the divide to enter into serious discussion on how the cancer of corruption could be cured to save social and administrative structure of the country from imminent collapse. Commenting on the issue, Justice (r) Wajihuddin said the government’s seriousness towards accountability could be judged from the fact that the most important position of the federal ombudsman was laying vacant for the last eight months. “When dacoits enter a home they first make CCTV cameras dysfunctional. In the same manner, our rulers have made all the organisations responsible for check and balances non-functional,” the retired justice said. He said civil bureaucracy and political leadership of the country was working in cahoots to loot the national exchequer. “People are angry and unsatisfied … all they need is a leader who can organise them,” he said, adding that the opposition parties too were receiving extortion from the corrupt elements to keep mum on the situation. “We are sitting on the mouth of volcano which can erupt at any time,” Wajihuddin added.
