CORRUPTION: It’s Price for Pakistan

Corruption means moral perversion, depravity, dishonesty — especially bribery — and putrefaction or decay.
Corruption is defined as ‘the abuse of public office for private gains. It involves the seeking or extracting of promise or receipt of a gift or any other advantage by a public servant in consideration of the performance or omission of an act, in violation of the duties required of the office.’ It is regarded as the transfer of interests between the public and private sectors in which the pubic interests are directed towards private interests.

Corruption can be a termed a two-way traffic as it involves members of both the public and private sectors, or a ‘giver’ and a ‘taker’ who are engaged in illegal, illegitimate and unethical acts. The misappropriation and embezzlement by a public servant in spending public money is also called corruption where there may be no involvement of a private person.

Corruption takes a variety of forms i.e. bribery, nepotism, patronage, theft of state assets, evasion of taxes, diversion of revenue and electoral fraud.
Corruption impedes economic growth, discourages foreign investment and inhibits access to vital public services. It also undermines the effectiveness of international aid.

To quote from a sane person, a growing outcry over corrupt governments forced several leaders from office last year, but as the dust has cleared it has become apparent that the levels of bribery, abuse of power and secret dealings are still very high in many countries.

A study by the World Bank in 2001 showed that corruption around the world is believed to be endemic and pervasive and a significant contributor to the low economic growth, to stifle investment, to inhibit the provision of public services and to increase inequality. The effects and impacts of not controlling this menace are quiet damaging in developing countries of the world because it hurts the poorer segments of society disproportionately. The World Bank’s estimates of 2004 clearly show that more than US$ 1 trillion was paid in bribes annually and the countries which devised and implemented some kind of pragmatic strategies to tackle corruption were able to improve governance and the rule of law besides increasing per capita incomes by a staggering 400 per cent.

The Law Commission of the Government of India has concluded that ‘the opportunity for corruption is a function of a public official’s control, the discretion that official has, and the accountability that this official faces for his or her decisions.’

There is a growing consensus amongst the policymakers around the world that corruption has a very serious negative impact on development. The values and morals of any society are believed to have a direct bearing upon the level of corruption prevailing within that society. The causes of corruption are contextual rooted in a country’s political development, legal development, social history, bureaucratic traditions, economic conditions and policies.

 In Pakistani society, the two major types of the prevalent corruption are: petty corruption and grand corruption. The common man of the country encounters ‘petty corruption’ in his everyday dealings in almost all the public sector offices. The Transparency International Pakistan in its recent report has raised Pakistan’s rank in the corruption index from 42 to 33 in an overall ranking of 176 countries of the world. It has further pointed out that the corruption levels reached their peak during 2012. The Chairman of the Transparency International Pakistan has identified corruption as the major cause of poverty, illiteracy, terrorism, shortage of electricity and lack of governance in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s credibility in the eyes of the international community has reached the lowest ebb. A high corruption rate has been the main cause of distortion in resource allocation and the poor government performance in Pakistan. The National Corruption Perception Survey 2010 clearly depicts that the overall corruption in 2010 increased from Rs 195 billion in 2009 to Rs 223 billion in 2010 and 70% Pakistanis stated that the present government is more corrupt than the previous government. Corruption in Pakistan has afflicted every organ of the state. The National Accountability Bureau’s chief Admiral Fasih Bokhari has estimated the corruption in Pakistan to be around Rs 10-12 billion a day. The NAB chief has made it clear that his corruption index did not cover indirect losses including the agricultural sector, revenue department, land grabbing and encroachments, loans defaults, the over-staffing, ghost schools, ghost employments, wealth tax losses, customs duties and duty drawbacks.

Some of the main reasons of corruption in Pakistan are unregulated land awards, the inefficient public sector, private sector cooperatives, drug money, foreign aid, the informal structure of the Pakistani economy and the overall institutional erosion. The roots of corruption in Pakistan can be traced back to the British Raj. The Englishmen had a policy of rewarding lands and titles to their cronies leading to favouritism, nepotism and corruption.

Lessons from the developed countries indicate that corruption can be controlled and brought within tolerable limits with the help of a tight monitoring process. In Pakistan, an effort in this direction was launched in the 1960s by constituting the provincial Anti-Corruption Establishments. At the federal level, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was formed to tackle corruption in the public sector. Unfortunately, over the years the anti-corruption arm of police has turned out to be highly incompetent and most corrupt.

After the dismissal of government of Ms Benazir Bhutto, the assassinated prime minister of Pakistan, in 1996, the then president Mr Farooq Leghari made a first serious attempt to establish a strong agency to fight corruption at the national level with the help of the caretaker government of that time. The Ehtesab Bureau was headed by a retired judge.

Former Prime Minister Mr Nawaz Sharif, after forming his second government, with a large majority in parliament, intensified efforts towards ehtesab (accountability). This effort under Mr Saif-ur-Rehman was largely one-sided and lacked the true moral authority required for a noble cause.

It is high time that policymakers in Pakistan understand that the poor governance breeds corruption in several ways. Consequently, the efficiencies on which an economy depends are reduced along with an increase in the cost of investment and lowering of potential return. The state needs to establish its credibility by punishing highly visible corrupt officials.