Intellectual corruption being the fountain-head of all collateral ailments
‘In the kingdom of glass, everything is transparent, and there is no place to hide a dark heart’.
–Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
Imagine the prime minister trying to convince that he is not playing a double game and that the protests against the drone strikes are ‘genuine’. So low has sunk the stock of his credibility, if ever there were any, in less than six months of benefiting from a flawed electoral exercise.
The NAB chief whom the prime minister and the leader of the opposition had appointed through consensus to cover the tracks of their crimes and those of their cohorts has opted for long leave in the wake of the Supreme Court (SC) judgment for initiating proceedings against him for ‘hindering a smooth and transparent investigation in the National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) scam’. The judgment also held him in contempt of court for removing the FIA officer who originally was overlooking the investigation into the NICL scam.
Interestingly, Abdul Rauf Chaudhry, the former secretary establishment, who has also been nominated in the alleged crime, now heads the special committee responsible for finalising key appointments in the state institutions. It would, therefore, be appropriate to assume that there would be thugs appointed to all such positions so that the loot spree could go on unchecked and there would be ‘official’ alibis to cover the telltale marks.
A revealing response to the SC judgment has come from none other than the leader of the opposition who has described it as ‘an insult to the parliament’. He is right. For all ends and purposes, the parliament is elected to promote and perpetuate corruption and anyone, or any institution that tries to impede that, is a contemnor of the elected parliament. The problem is that not only are the so-called elected representatives irremediably corrupt, they are also shameless.
The NICL is just one of the innumerable scams unearthed during the tenure of the so-called democratically-elected governments. In spite of the damaging indictments and the SC judgments recommending initiation of appropriate proceedings against the guilty, not one case has been effectively prosecuted and the condemned continue to enjoy the spoils of their ill-gotten millions. The induction into power of the Nawaz Sharif clan has further fuelled the fire of corruption which is now generally taken as a right by everyone elected to the legislature or appointed to a critical position in the government. They believe that they have an inalienable right to indulge in heartless loot of the state exchequer, aided and abetted by an incorrigibly corrupt leadership.
The critical question that needs to be examined is that, in the event of the allegedly corrupt rulers continuing to hold sway over the power echelons, is there a viable prospect for the scourge to be controlled in the country? The obvious answer would be an assertive no because the state institutions and the people who manage them are either grossly unmindful of the damaging consequences of the corruption spree, or they are abjectly complicit in the acts of loot as well as the attempts to hide the tracks that lead to the perpetrators. This, in turn, emanates from the manner in which key appointments are made to positions that can influence the conduct of the state institutions.
The example is adequately illustrated by the case of the incumbent (?) NAB Chairman. He was allegedly guilty of having tried to cover up the NICL corruption scam as well as people who were responsible. Concurrently, in violation of the SC adjudication, he transferred the FIA officer who was conducting the enquiry, thus becoming guilty of contempt of court.
With this background, why was he selected jointly by the prime minister and the leader of the opposition to head the sole accountability organisation of the country? Well, you are right: to use a corrupt person to cover the corruption that they and their parties have been guilty of committing in the past.
This conclusion is given further credence by the sharp reaction of the leader of the opposition to the SC directive to institute cases against all those who were responsible for the NICL scam. This is being projected as an affront to the so-called supremacy of the legislature and, consequently, its unquestioned authority to appoint individuals with tainted past to positions of authority all across the national spectrum.
A key factor that adversely impacts the initiation and prosecution of criminal proceedings against the corrupt is the paradox within the judicial system itself: while the SC is issuing directives to initiate criminal proceedings against all those found guilty in various cases, the subsidiary judiciary is busy stalling the process. Take the wilful loan default case of the Hudabiya Paper Mills against Nawaz Sharif and other members of his family. Apparently, there is sufficient evidence including the 43-page confessional statement of the incumbent finance minister (whose son is married to the prime minister’s daughter to keep it all within the family!) to convict the alleged transgressors, but a bench of the Lahore High Court stayed the proceedings back in October 2011. The case hearing was concluded in December 2012 and the verdict was reserved. It remains ‘reserved’ to-date and, most probably, shall remain so to perpetuity!
The confessional statement of Ishaq Dar is a mind-boggling document indicting members of the Sharif clan: “I opened two foreign currency accounts in the name of Sikandara Masood Qazi and Talat Masood Qazi with the foreign currency funds provided by the Sharif family in the Bank of America by signing as Sikandara Masood Qazi and Talat Masood Qazi. All instructions to the bank in the name of these two persons were signed by me under the orders of original depositors, namely Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif. The foreign currency accounts of Nuzhat Gohar and Kashif Masood Qazi were opened in Bank of America by Naeem Mehmood under my instructions (based on the directives of the Sharifs) by signing the same as Nuzhat Gohar and Kashif Masood Qazi”.
In spite of such apparently conclusive evidence, further proceedings in the case remain stayed and the alleged criminals continue to occupy positions of power in the country, defining its fate and, more importantly, the fate of their personal illicit gains acquired through decades. This conduct is in consonance with that of another alleged criminal who manoeuvred his way to becoming the head of the state and, thereafter, thwarted all moves to initiate criminal proceedings against him and recover from his coffers the illicit millions that he had scavenged.
There are pending cases also with regard to Ittefaq Foundries, Raiwind Assets and the others. The proceedings in all these cases remain stayed. There is no hope in hell that these will be revived as long as the Sharifs remain effectively in command of the state institutions. They may be followed by another set of criminals who may assume charge to denude the state. There will be over a hundred Mamnoon Hussains appointed to regulate all key state institutions and do the Sharifs’ bidding, and that of their collaborators.
Should one, therefore, conclude that it is the inherent fate of the country to be ruled by thugs and criminals and that the promise offered by the SC is but an illusion, and even that may disappear with the exit of the incumbent chief justice? I understand that days are being literally counted to his exit so that the full repertoire of the Sharifs’ corruption and vengeance could be unleashed: “Will you, then, never grow weary of being unjust?,” wrote Pierre Choderlos de Laclos in Dangerous Liaisons.
Justness and honesty of conduct are virtues that are absent from the way the country is being managed and, inevitably, shall remain so in the foreseeable future also. This is so because all instruments of the state authority that could conceivably check the nefarious onslaught are regulated and controlled by the very people who are its beneficiaries. The higher judiciary has become relatively cleaner because of two principal factors: the proactive conduct of the chief justice and the relative empowerment of the judiciary in the context of the drive for the promulgation of the rule of law. There is no such empowerment given to any other state institution that could play a vital role in the evolution of a transparent and just system regulated by people with intellectual integrity and character.
Try as hard as some of us may, nothing is likely to change in the governance mechanism within the present shape and structure of the system and the corrupt doctrine that regulates it. At the same time, in the light of the increasing frustration with the way the country is being ruled and the sharp contradictions that it suffers from in the annals of policy-making and practice which remain ludicrously out of sync with the ground realities and requirements, a hope is fleetingly taking shape that things may, after all, not persist for too long. What is required is to concretise this widespread perception more clearly, candidly and effectively to provide the requisite momentum to expedite the shaping of a concerted movement towards a meaningful change.
Raoof Hasan is a political analyst and the Executive Director of the Regional Peace Institute. He can be reached at[email protected]
