Institutional Corruption of 3 decades

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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As most of us know that Pakistan leadership in late 1970’s and then in 1980’s had a blueprint to institutionalize corruption (so no accountability from any direction can take place) and also keep certain degree on unrest to keep reaping benefits of foreign aid while also making common man worry about his day to day life as. I have been privy to this information on a first hand basis as I have seen the documents whereby unrest and corrupting the key institutions was a formalized policy emancipating from highest echelons of power. My uncle’s friend was a bureaucrat who was instrumental in those documents and funnily enough that bureaucrat went onto become President of Pakistan as well!

Now the situation is:

  1. All state institutions are corrupt for the most part thus not functioning how they are supposed to be.

  2. Common man is more concerned if he will live through today.

  3. Financial, moral and ethical corruption as well as nepotism is very much socially acceptable. In fact if you do not have “sources” which can turn and twist law and merit - then one is considered commoner and not part of elite (which is looked up to by common man).

  4. 30 years of corruption has made almost every one guilty of corruption of one sort to another - from paying rishwat to staff at airport (so your suitcase is not opened for security) to getting a telephone line, to gas connection, to getting NTN to getting loans approved of bigger amount to their right offs.

  5. Entire socio-economic conditions have been deliberately made to deteriorate so the masses cannot question the illegitimacy of any act; subversion of constitution to money laundering to ruling like a king and even then settling kings kids abroad so in difficult times (if they ever come) kingdom can be enjoyed outside Pakistan.

In the nutshell; the situation is such that whoever wants to bring the change (for better) in Pakistan will fail and lose hope and the whole drama setup by Zia-ul-Haq ill continue as it benefit’s the 3%.

Now; what I wonder is; what is the fault of a child of a common man who will be malnourished (50% chance) and who will not get school education (50% chance) and as World Bank states there is 12.5% chance that that child will live his/her life below poverty line or 50% at the poverty line.

Obviously this extreme poverty and no education is a combination which suits both major political parties and why will they change it as it works in their favor be it; rural Sindh or Punjab.

In 1990’s a lot of countries changed their fates and now they are reaping the benefits but only handful of families in Pakistan benefitted from golden era of 1990s where Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, and many others benefitted due to sincere leaderships all we got in that era was Surrey Palace and Mayfair Apartments.

Will average Pakistani person always deserve this or is there any hope for a common man in Pakistan?

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Re: Institutional Corruption of 3 decades

no there is no hope. common man in pakistan wants this system to continue.

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Re: Institutional Corruption of 3 decades

So basically it's a circus and people have accepted that there will always be a group which will be "haves" and then common man and all his future generations will be most probably "have-nots"?

If this is a fact (happening since 69 years) of today - then seriously I salute the conscience of those who are educated and try to build up the case for keeping the existing status quo in the garb of saving the system which ironically has failed on every single aspect and front for last seven decades.

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Re: Institutional Corruption of 3 decades

which former member are you ? :D

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Re: Institutional Corruption of 3 decades

Question:

If all State Organs (Institutions) are non functioning or not working as per constitution; would revolt / rebellion be the answer or any such move would tantamount to treason?

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Re: Institutional Corruption of 3 decades

A little bit of background -

DAWN - the Internet Edition
19 July 1998 Sunday 24 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1419 

                               Herald

Cowasjee
* Archive Section
* Write to Mr. Cowasjee

                            The meltdown

                        By Ardeshir Cowasjee

WHEN that intrepid dictator, President General Zia-ul- Haq, fell from
the skies in 1988, he had reigned and ruled over this country for
longer than any other man or woman. On his disintegration, Ghulam
Ishaq Khan, then Chairman of the Senate, constitutionally took over
with the avowed intent of restoring democracy
With army approval, he selected for the task Benazir Bhutto, daughter
of his erstwhile president and prime minister, the martyred Zulfikar
Ali Bhutto, and handed to her on a platter her first job - prime
minister of the Republic of Pakistan. In twenty months, excessive
greed, an insatiable appetite for power and pelf, her husband, her
inexperience and immaturity brought about her downfall, leaving her
and her family far richer and the country far poorer.
To replace her, another young budding politician was selected by the
selection committee, a rising star who since 1981 had developed a
taste for the political game. In stepped avaricious ambitious Mian
Nawaz Sharif.
To sum up Nawaz Sharif's background, I quote (using the obligatory
adjective) an 'eminent' columnist, who on December 15, 1990, wrote in
The Nation: "If the President, the Prime Minister and the top army
brass [crafty General Aslam Beg with his claim that Pakistan then had
15 bombs] are all smiling at each other and are thus encouraging the
bureaucracy to abide by the rules of the game, should we not all
applaud? Might it not be better for the belaboured 'larger national
interest' if Nawaz Sharif resists for as long as possible the natural
tendency of an ambitious politician to test his clout and power?
"....... Nawaz Sharif's father, Mian Mohammed Sharif, was one of seven
brothers, the eldest and the only one educated to matric standard. The
seven started off in 1940, after pooling their resources, with a
modest cast-iron parts business in Lahore city........By the end of
the decade they were well on their way to success and all seven moved
into Ittefaq Manzil on Brandreth Road. Somewhere in the 1950s they
bought their first car, a Chevrolet, into which the seven piled each
morning and drove off together to work.
"They progressed and prospered during Ayub's rising '60s. Then came
the PPP government [ZAB] and with it a total change of attitude and of
Ittefaq's fortunes. The foundry was nationalized.
".......... The family moved to Dubai where they installed a steel
plant which never really took off. There Zia met the brothers in 1979
and asked them to return to Lahore, take back their battered and
bruised family industry which he would denationalize and, in return
for various concessions and administrative support, restore it to its
former glory."
The martial law authorities were duly befriended, and in 1981 Nawaz
Sharif was appointed finance minister in their Punjab cabinet.
Business flourished, expanded and diversified. In 1985, Nawaz Sharif
won seats in both provincial and national assemblies - and that was
that. From chief minister of his home province (re-elected in1988)
onwards to prime minister of the Federation in 1990.
He chose not to tread the straight and narrow. He and his government
made no serious effort to bring back what had been robbed by Benazir
Bhutto and her cronies to convict the guilty of their crimes. And for
good reason. He and his men went on the rampage, consolidating power,
giving away what was not theirs to give, using their clout to bankrupt
the cooperative banks and societies, and to borrow money from the
nation's banks and DFIs without adequate security.
Finally, not because Nawaz Sharif had robbed and plundered, but simply
because he had dared to challenge his authority and his Pathan honour,
Ghulam Ishaq Khan removed him. Nawaz went to the Supreme Court. The
then Chief Justice, Dr Naseem Hasan Shah, and his brother judges,
wrote a 'historic' judgement judicially restoring Nawaz Sharif to
power. The Doctor still retains the sense of humour for which he was
famous when on the Bench. When I asked him how he now feels about his
'historic' judgement, he sighed and answered, "Well, we could have
done worse."
Ghulam Ishaq and Nawaz Sharif were shot out two months later by The
Man who came to Dinner, COAS General Wahid Kakar. Moeen Qureshi,
Benazir Bhutto and Farooq Leghari followed in turn and compounded the
rot.
Both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, their cronies and henchmen, have
robbed. The former lot had a straight forward approach. They took
kickbacks, they stashed money abroad. Some say they have robbed up to
$2.5 billion. Nawaz Sharif is believed to have also whisked money
abroad, but being a failed businessman, his concentration has been on
borrowing beyond his means at home and extending his industrial
empire. As of now, he and his family are owners of 26 large industrial
units. According to the CIB State Bank figure, they are in default to
the tune of some Rs.5 billion (500 crores).
This most influential of defaulters has resorted to a unique method of
repaying a portion of the amount owed. Before me lies a copy of an
agreement dated June 30, 1998, on Ittefaq Foundries letterhead, drawn
up by the debtors' lawyers, headed "The terms of the arrangements
under Section 284 of the Companies Ordinance 1984 between the Ittefaq
Foundries (Pvt) Ltd ...... and the creditor banks namely, (1) the
National Bank of Pakistan, (2) Habib Bank Ltd, (3) United Bank Ltd,
(4) Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan, (5) Muslim Commercial
Bank Ltd, (6) Pakistan Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation,
(7) Bank of Punjab, (8) First Punjab Modaraba."
It has been signed by the Company, and sent to the eight banking
concerns, which have also signed it, without making any reference to
the principal creditors involved, i.e. the sovereign Government of
Pakistan, the ministry of finance, the State Bank of Pakistan, or the
directors on the boards of the creditors.
Normally, neither creditor nor debtor rushes to the court unless one
or the other is aggrieved. In this case, the agreement makes it
mandatory "that the creditor banks shall move the Lahore High Court,
Lahore", to sanctify the agreement, failing which "the Company will
also be at liberty to apply to the High Court in this behalf."
The agreement was sanctified on July 8, 1998, by Justice Malik
Muhammad Qayyum, the experienced High Court banking and company judge.
It envisages, inter alia, the appointment of "a Board comprising a
representative of the Banks and a nominee of the Court. The Board,
shall be empowered to manage the property during the interregnum, if
need be to develop the same through a development scheme, or
otherwise, and take all necessary steps, as deemed fit by it, to
secure the maximum sale price. The Board shall have the authority to
dispose of the property in such manner as considered proper by it. The
Board may seek guidance from the Court on any issue. Any difference of
opinion between the members of the Board shall be resolved by the
Court. All sales shall be subject to confirmation by the Court."
The agreement is loaded in favour of the debtors. Ironically, the
creditors, the sovereign people of Pakistan, having relinquished
voluntarily most of their rights, according to the agreement, agree
"that this arrangement is without prejudice to the rights of the
creditor Banks and the Company under the law."
The agreement does not mention the fact that the debtor company,
Ittefaq Foundries, is claiming Rs.5 billion from the Government of
Pakistan, i.e. UBL and the other banks. This newspaper of record, in
its issue of July 9 has rightly front-paged and reproduced the full
text of the agreement made by "the insolvent concerns."
Although the prime minister promised the nation, in one of his
televised addresses, that he and his family would hand over their
assets in repayment of their defaulted loans, none of the assets of
the lucrative units have been handed back. Referring to the
philanthropic activities of the family recently fanfared at Raiwind,
an independent citizen remarked, "Who does the PM think he is, the
Robin Hood of Raiwind? He does not pay back to the people what he
owes, he doles out charity at their expense."
To stay in power and out of fear of being bankrupted by a succeeding
government, the ruling party will do what is right by it, not what is
right by the people. To quote from the front-page of Dawn of July 18:
"The government has given up its plans to arrest defaulters and
utility bills defaulters as it is meeting growing opposition to the
plan from within its own constituencies. The imposition of General
Sales Tax as defined by the IMF is also said to have been deferred
indefinitely because of pressure from within the PML."
Likewise, the ruling party will continue to give in to the
unjustifiable demands of its coalition partners, disregarding the
safety of life and property of the people of Karachi. The meltdown has
begun.

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                              [INLINE]

                  © DAWN Group of Newspapers, 1998
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Re: Institutional Corruption of 3 decades

Crooks have captured Pakistan. They are worse than invaders and colonizers, these thugs are lowly kind of God's creation, and have followers who share their gene of corruption, nepotism and slavery, in droves.

These crooks have written and later modified the constitution. Some part of it is good and some to keep themselves and their cronies safe from getting punished.

Unfortunately, their propaganda about treason is ridiculous. Saying that revolt against constitution is high treason is preposterous. Leave high treason, even treason is not against constitution in any country, but treason is always against the state and state is not constitution.

These crooks have made Pakistan their colony and gave a new meaning to corruption. According to them, all in Pakistan are corrupt, but that is an ugly lie. A person can not be corrupt if that person has no state power and that means, corrupt can be either politician in power or government (civil) servants ... including forces.

As for civilians (ordinary citizen of Pakistan), they cannot be corrupt. They can be criminal but cannot be corrupt.

Whatever wrong a citizen does, be that with collusion of civil servants of without, it could not be corruption but crime. For instance, if a civilian bribes than that civilian has done crime. On the other hand, the one who took bribe is corrupt. It is duty of state to arrest and punish both criminals and corrupts.

Corruption is worse than crime as corruption generate and aid crime. Thus, corrupts are worse than criminals, as they are cause of most crimes. Criminals get encouraged in country where their is corruption.

It is duty of armed forces to takeover the country (bring military rule) if they think people in power are doing corruption and other state institutions are doing nothing. Justification is that, a corrupt person in power is actually holding power (office of authority) illegally, because no state allows corrupts to hold office of authority (not even Pakistani constitution), thus one who got into office of authority and is corrupt too, is holding office of authority illegally. Even election and votes cannot allow or give mandate to a corrupt to hold or keep office of authority.

When these corrupts and crooks try to scare armed forces from fulfilling their duty, it make me laugh ... as that can only happen if armed forces are coward or do not care for the country. When people give example of west, than that is ridiculous too, as no corrupt can hold office of authority in west and if anyone do get into office by any means than once found guilty of corruption, state arrests that person, prosecute that person and send that person to prison.

Another stupid propaganda these corrupts and crooks have done in Pakistan is that, government and state is same. Obviously, that is wrong, as state is supposed to be forever and government comes and go.

Employee of state run the country and look after well being of the country. They are suppose to be so powerful that they can arrest even PM or President if they find them breaking the law or harming the country.

Those in government make laws ... and here also, they cannot make laws that can harm the state or people living in the country (citizen of country).

People who secure state is not government or politician but armed forces, intelligence agencies, Judiciary, police and bureaucrats. These institutions in developed countries are so powerful that no government can go against them, and they have power to even arrest Prime Minister or President. They also do their own accountability and any person in these institutions is found corrupt or guilty of nepotism, then state punishes and take cares of that person too ... regardless of that person is from Armed forces, intelligence agencies, judiciary, police or bureaucracy.

Looking at situation in Pakistan, it seems corrupts and crooks once in power, have destroyed all civil institutions (Civil intelligence, Police, bureaucracy and Judiciary) and use them as their personal servants. It is surprising that corrupts in civil intelligence, police, judiciary and police get their salary (wages) from state (public purse) but consider these crooks as their masters. Most unfortunate is that, to please their crook political masters, these sold out people in civil intelligence, police, bureaucracy and judiciary persecute and torment people of Pakistan (who pay their wages).

In this situation, it is duty of armed forces to take over the country and hang corrupts ... whoever has done corruption while holding public offices, be that person politician (Parliamentarians, Senators, Ministers, CM, PM, President, etc) or people in civil intelligence, police, bureaucracy or Judiciary.

Actually, once armed forces overtake the country's administration, army should start doing accountability by looking at assets of all politicians whoever held public offices and government servants, asking them to justify whatever they have and if they could not justify then hang them and confiscate their wealth (be that wealth, in and out of country)

People go in armed forces to serve the country, so it is ridiculous to expect that they would get scared of acting for the country just because crooks in parliament have written constitutional clauses of high treason to keep themselves and their corruption safe.

Regardless, once in power, Army should think about long term. General should forget double game of dictatorship along with democracy.

Army should remember that it was not people, but it was army themselves who deposed Yahya and brought in Bhutto. But army did not needed to do that, neither army need to share power with corrupt politicians what Zia, Yahya and Musharraf did.

That means, even if these political crooks scare army chief of prosecution, they would not get any chance to prosecute as they would not be there, because being corrupt, they should be hanged. Plus, once army gets in, army should keep the power for at least next 20 years (passing from one General to another ... until time, corruption from Pakistan gets eliminated).

Important thing is that, Army should know that they would not be able to justify and sustain power if they do not severely punish corrupts and confiscate their wealth ... or themselves start getting involved in corruption.

Waisay bhie, one should realise (as anyone with common sense would know) that person (army generals) who are willing to give their life for country cannot be guilty of treason. Guilty of treason are those who are corrupt and thus loot the country for personal benefit ... and worse of those corrupts are those who not only loot and plunder the country but transfer looted wealth abroad ... as these crooks are guilty of high treason ... because they harm the country most.

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Re: Institutional Corruption of 3 decades

I am trying to understand the issue but if you simply look at cause and effect relationship - it perfectly suits the ruling elite. I believe whoever has any role in spending public money (collected through taxes) must be answerable to public; be it ruler from fair elections, selective selections (2013 type (s)elections), army takeover, coup.

Unfortunately; we do not have leaders who put Pakistan first, there had been corruption in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand type of countries but these countries are not ruled by "Visitor or Vacationing" PM's. They did corruption but spent most of the money within their own countries.

Whether we agree or not; our downfall and continued slide is due to the fact that every head of the state that Pak had since last 65 years tweaked law to always be superior to the system; hence the desire to be above the law - always - has shredded the socioeconomic fabric into pieces and those who are doing it; they boast of their "power" while doing it.

Systematic destruction of institutions has not happened unintentionally - it was a very well laid out plan - execution of which is still continuing as current and future political leadership has loads of skeletons in the closets to rule without fear and in the national interest and not personal interest!