Long tale carrying a short message
Accountability for everyone is a truism no one can easily object to. But putting that truism into practice is a bit problematic. Who should be conducting the process of accountability; how do you ensure accountability does not become victimisation; that no section of the society remains beyond the reach of justice; and most importantly, how do you ensure that people have faith in the process of accountability?
Recently, Imran Khan demanded that a military led anti corruption campaign should be launched in Punjab, as well as KP, the province where PTI holds power. Addressing a press conference at Bani Gala on September 13, Imran Khan said, “Agencies should come to Punjab, and even KP to clean what we have been unable to,” Imran said, though he was quick to point out that Punjab should be the top priority, as “the biggest scams will be found there.”
Imran Khan’s demand was derided by other parties as being unconstitutional. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said that paramilitary forces did not have the mandate to conduct such action in Karachi or any other area. He referred to the demand as “unconstitutional”, “senseless and inappropriate”. Nisar went on to say, “Calling upon the Rangers or the army for political point scoring is not only synonymous with creating controversy in these institutions, but it will ultimately cause the Karachi operation to shift from its primary motives.”
Imran Khan’s demand was derided by other parties as being unconstitutional. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said that paramilitary forces did not have the mandate to conduct such action in Karachi or any other area
But such criticism notwithstanding, Imran Khan’s demand is, nevertheless, not an unsurprising one. Other constitutionally mandated institutions for accountability in the country have been supremely useless in holding anyone accountable or even uncovering corruption. The Public Accounts Committee has been inactive for over two and a half years, giving credence to Imran Khan’s claim about “muk-muka” politics of PPP and PML-N. NAB showed signs of life only after a number of its chiefs were humiliated and made to leave by the Supreme Court and supposedly after a little persuasion by the army chief.
Khan expressed his complete lack of confidence in both PAC and NAB saying that those “were controlled by them (the PPP and the PML-N).”
Government officials, on the other hand, claim Imran Khan’s demand is just the latest in his series of attempts to involve the military establishment in politics and to facilitate the ouster of the elected government by any means necessary. They point to the lack of any meaningful attempt in the last two and a half years to expose corruption in Punjab, which Khan now claims is home to the biggest scams, through their position on the Public Accounts Committee in Punjab, which PTI controls.
Even the current NAB chairman Chaudhry Qamar Zaman had been on the job for 21 months without ruffling any feathers when on July 7 a list of 150 mega scams was submitted to the Supreme Court of Pakistan invoking universal condemnation at least from the politicians who were named in the list.
But the list, most of all, was a perfect example of the ineptitude of the national institution for more than a decade and a half. Of the 150 mega corruption cases, NAB had filed a reference only in 25 per cent of them, even though some of the cases were more than 15 years old. The list also ignored all corruption that Musharraf had presided over. The 150 cases did not name anyone connected with Musharraf who had committed fraud in his nine-year rule, leading Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid to claim that only those who resisted Musharraf’s rule were NAB’s target.
“Allegations against Nawaz Sharif were made at the behest of Musharraf, who could not prove them. Neither could NAB bring the charges to a court of law,” the minister said. He went on to say that they would introduce a law to punish anyone “who would not be able to prove his allegations”. Former NA speaker threatened the NAB chairman with a reference against him in the parliament.
But interestingly, the list included only twenty politicians while the rest were businessmen, bureaucrats and former military men. Indeed, politicians have accounted for a relatively low percentage of the corruption that NAB has reported. If one government minister is to be believed, it may be less than two percent. But, somehow, everyone read the same reports and thought only politicians had been shown as corrupt.
On July 28, NAB submitted a fresh list of 29 scandals in the Supreme Court because some of the cases had been overlooked in the earlier list. One of the cases involved a Rs4 billion scandal in the army-run National Logistics Cell (NLC). NAB said that they had received the complaint against NLC in July 2011 and that they had been asking NLC and General Headquarters (GHQ) for a response since January 2012. However, neither NLC, nor GHQ had sent them any records or given them a reply in over three years.
The opposition soon joined the government in condemning NAB as several opposition leaders had also been named in the mega scams list. On August 2, the Public Accounts Committee revealed that they had sent several letters to the then NA speaker Ayaz Sadiq that NAB had been slow in its investigation of some very important cases including the NLC and the Sher Shah bridge collapse (one of the accused in the bridge collapse case was a former military man, Maj General (r) Farrukh Javed). PAC Chief Khursheed Shah said that he had asked NAB and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to pursue several cases but they were not cooperating.
But the passive aggressive annoyance of the major opposition party, PPP, towards NAB soon turned into a full-scale barrage of accusations when on August 26, PPP co-chairman’s close confidante Higher Education Commission Sindh Chairman Dr Asim Hussain was arrested by the Rangers and NAB, and was later remanded into Rangers’ custody for 90 days. They felt like the operation which had mainly targeted violent criminals in Karachi (read MQM) had now been focused on them. The chief minister Sindh termed it an invasion of Sindh by the federal agencies.
During the last week and a half, NAB has indicted 11 people including senior PPP leader Amin Fahim, and former secretary of the commerce ministry Suleman Ghani
Fearing action against the party co-chairman, Khursheed Shah threatened war if action was taken against Asif Ali Zardari. With arrest warrants also issued against his former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Zardari threatened dire consequences if federal agencies kept pushing his party against the wall. Zardari faced a setback when his comments were perceived to be directed against the armed forces.
Realising his mistake, Zardari shifted his attack towards the government. The long-standing policy of compromise between the PPP and the PML-N was hurriedly put to death and battle lines were quickly drawn. It was like they never stopped being at war. In his press conference, Zardari warned of dire repercussions for politics of vengeance by the PML-N.
MQM felt they could breathe a half sigh of relief. PTI felt genuinely jubilant. Any ground lost by the MQM and the PPP in Sindh could conceivably go to PTI. Couldn’t the same happen in Punjab?
Meanwhile, the information minister’s pleas that PPP had “either misunderstood or had been given misleading information” that the action against the PPP leaders was being carried out at the behest of the PML-N, would fall on deaf ears. But PML-N also refused to take any action in support of their beleaguered counterparts in the PPP.
During the last week and a half, NAB has indicted 11 people including senior PPP leader Amin Fahim, and former secretary of the commerce ministry Suleman Ghani, and in a major move, has decided to initiate action against current and former lawmakers as well as top bureaucrats such as the former auditor general of Pakistan (AGP). NAB announced that it would be conducting complaint verifications against PML-N MNA Syed Iftikharul Hassan and former Sindh minister Syed Ali Nawaz Shah.
Everyone thinks the nation would be best served if everyone faced accountability everyone, that is, except themselves. Evidence suggests that contrary to what we believe, corruption may not be limited to politicians or even to bureaucrats. So long as the lopsided doling out of accountability continues while some parts of the society remain untouchable, the process of accountability will always remain open to criticism. Selective justice, after all, is closer to oppression than it is to justice.
