NEW DELHI (TrustLaw) – Transparency International Pakistan’s chairman, Syed Adil Gilani, speaks to TrustLaw about corruption and its role in fuelling militancy in the country.
Q: How would describe the level of corruption in Pakistan?
A: A measure of the level of corruption in Pakistan can be indicated by the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) which in 2009 rated Pakistan as the 42nd most corrupt country out of 180 countries.
Pakistan’s score on the CPI last year was 2.4 on a scale from zero to ten, with zero indicating high levels of perceived corruption and ten indicating low levels.
Over the 13 years that Pakistan has featured in the CPI, the country’s score has remained between 2 and 2.7, which was the best score achieved in 1998.
According to our National Corruption Perception Survey this year, police and power maintained their ranking as the top two most corrupt sectors, and land administration is ranked as third.
Corruption in judiciary, education and local government has also increased compared to 2009.
Q: How does corruption affect ordinary Pakistanis?
A: Corruption is draining away the money we need for development and generating economic growth.
We are not able to address our economic problems – food is becoming costly, we have power and water shortages, meat is more expensive – all this is because of corruption and nothing else.
The poor are the most deprived. When there is no water, people have to buy water from water tankers. All this is happening because the money which is spent of development is being siphoned off and so either the project doesn’t take off or it is largely ineffective and poorly managed.
Q: What has been the biggest impediment to combating graft in the country?
A: Military rule, which has happened four times in Pakistan since independence, has been the biggest impediment to tackling corruption as it has interfered with good governance issues.
Governance comes through democracy. Even in a democratic system, there are corrupt people but as democracy develops, graft can be reduced more effectively. Democracy has not been allowed to develop in Pakistan.
Q: What bodies exist in Pakistan to check graft?
There was an anti-graft body in Pakistan formed in 1996 during civilian rule and its head was an active high court judge.
But when the army general and (now) former president Pervez Musharraf took power in 2001 to 2008, he changed it to the National Accountability Bureau or NAB and made an active army general the head. This destroyed everything.
The most glaring decline of governance was that Musharraf issued a pardon for all the corruption cases as part of National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) in 2007.
The NRO granted a blanket pardon for past corrupt practices and provides for an automatic withdrawal of all corruption cases filed against public officials prior to 1999. It also bars legal action against ministers and parliamentarians. About 4,000 cases of corruption involving politicians and others were pardoned in 2008.
Q: Has the current civilian coalition government which won elections in 2008 improved efforts to tackle graft?
A: It is a mixed situation. Some things have improved, but others have worsened.
Definitely the judiciary has improved. An independent judiciary was restored in March 2009 and they have declared zero tolerance for corruption in the judiciary. So at least this shows a will to fight.
In the armed forces, the army chief, General Kayani, has withdrawn all active officers from civilian posts and they are doing work on the anti-corruption agenda.
But on the civilian governance side, this is where more work needs to be done. There has been no serious anti-corruption drive from the civilian government.
For example, the current minister of interior was convicted by the High Court on corruption charges and the president, who has the authority to pardon any crime, pardoned him within three hours. The minister is still in the same position as the law and order chief of Pakistan. This obviously sends a very bad signal.
Q: How much is Pakistan losing through corrupt practices?
A: According to our National Corruption Perception Survey in 2010, 223 billion rupees ($2.6 billion) is lost through petty corrupt practices in the last year, an increase from 195 billion rupees in 2009.
Almost half of money lost through corruption in Pakistan is in the tendering process. So, if there is a $10 billion corruption scandal, it most likely that $5 billion will be linked to tendering.
According to recent results of transparent tendering for transportation of sugar by the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP), the TCP has saved at least 49.3 million rupees ($570,000) by implementing Public Procurement Rules Act 2004, which is 40 percent lower than the cost of the same work awarded last year.
Q: Is Pakistan a signatory to the United Nations Convention against Corruption?
A: Pakistan has signed and ratified the UNCAC. But there has been a total violation of the UNCAC.
The NAB chief is supposed to be the official national contact for UNCAC, but he resigned three months ago. There is no new person.
Q: What about anti-graft legislation in Pakistan?
A: Pakistan has some of the best anti-graft legislation in Asia. We have all the laws and rules and regulations, but they have all been violated and there is no organisation – the NAB, the judiciary or the government – that is really working to catch those who are guilty.
That is the biggest problem. If all these bodies worked according to the rule of law, then Pakistan could really effectively tackle this problem. Enforcement and political will is seriously lacking.
Q: There is conflict between government forces and insurgents in the country, leaving hundreds of thousands of people displaced. Don’t you think that this is more of a priority for the government than tackling graft?
A: Pakistan is obviously fighting a war against terrorism but this is not an excuse for corruption to take place. No way.
Corruption is in fact partly responsible for militancy in Pakistan. Young men are joining militant groups as they are disaffected with no money and no employment. Much of this is due to corruption which is impacting our economy and ability to develop poor areas of the country, which are recruiting points for insurgents.
People do not have jobs because of corruption and they are dying because of corruption. Fundamentalist groups feed off the poverty – which is partly due to corruption -- and gain willing recruits by offering them 10,000 rupees a month.
If there was no corruption, employment would be more of a possibility and there would be less likelihood of young men joining these terrorist groups.
Q: Is foreign aid for humanitarian activities at risk from corruption?
A: No. The aid money provided is being spent by the donor agencies themselves. It is not going through the hands of Pakistanis. The right way is definitely that the funds should be spent through the local people, but only when the local people should have enough integrity to manage it without corruption.
Q: What recommendations do you give to the government?
A: Things will only improve if the government understands that unless anti-corruption measures are taken, Pakistan will not survive this economic crime.
The government is definitely listening to what groups like Transparency International Pakistan are lobbying for. But they are responding unsuccessfully and justifying it all by blaming previous military rule in the country. They are not doing anything very active to address the issue.
Pakistan needs to address the corruption with full political will, such as being demonstrated by the judiciary, by at least declaring it under the judicial policy to be a organisation of zero tolerance for corruption.
The Pakistan Armed Forces have also attempted to tackle the problem by withdrawing its active senior officers from civilian postings and have successfully also controlled violations of the Public Procurement Rules Act 2004.
However, parliament needs to immediately pass the act for an Independent Accountability Commission for across-the-board accountability as required under UNCAC which has been ratified by Pakistan in 2007.
Unless urgent measures are taken, Pakistan may be equated to Afghanistan – seen as the second most corrupt country in the world after Somalia. Therefore the rule of law needs to be brought back to Pakistan.
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