Everyday on my way to work I pass by a huge sign giving a number to call to report corruption in any programme that is funded by the USAID. I find that sign ironic because the USAID and other international organisations are the main reason for corruption in Pakistan. It is these aid organisations that have contributed to promoting corruption because they have never prosecuted and held responsible anyone involved in corruption.
In UNICEF funded Peshawar education department programme, corruption of $ 47 million was detected a few years back in the supply of equipment to government schools. UNICEF fired all the corrupt employees and started an internal investigation against a few of them, but they never prosecuted any employee in the court of law in Pakistan.
The Kerry-Lugar aid bill of US brought a number of US NGOs into Pakistan in 2008. One of them working for FATA detected a corruption of 30 crore rupees. Before the employee responsible for it could be prosecuted, the head of the NGO was murdered. Even after the US investigated the case and identified the murderer, they still did not prosecute him in Pakistan.
In the past four years, three of the employees of USAID, whom I know personally, each committed frauds in the organisation worth more then 1M$ and each of them were unceremoniously kicked out but were never prosecuted in Pakistan.
And the most ironic part is that all of the corrupt workers get jobs in other organisations because of their latest USAID and UN experience on their CV. This kind of behaviour, when seen by other workers, tempts them to follow the same path for their riches.
The sad thing is that these organisations have budgets of billions of dollars, and yet they could not spare a few thousand dollars every month to help pay for lawyers to prosecute these corrupt officials and stop them from getting jobs in aid organisations in the future.
DR AKEKH KHAN
Peshawar