Wrong Way

With the advancement of political awakening in the country, the individuals in command of authority have grossly misused their powers. They have enjoyed freedom of action for misdeeds largely because of ineffective accountability. A number of them do not seem to be amenable to any discipline. The maxim that power corrupteth a man and absolute power corrupteth absolutely has often been mentioned to describe this situation.

Not only have individuals, with the exceptions of a few misused power for their own personal ends, but political parties and groups have also exercised in this country during the past and political power incomplete disregard of all norms of equity and in violations of rules with impunity with the result that larger sections of the people have suffered and remained materially and otherwise more or less at the stage where they were at the beginning of the history of this country. Corruption has shattered our moral values and imbalanced all equilibriums of the economy and the society.

The process of accountability and anti-corruption initiatives have miserably failed to weed out corruption from the country. All we have seen during the last four decades is the retirement of some officers whose record was not unblemished after they had put in twenty-five years of service. The recent accountability and anti-corruption attempts by the incumbent PTI government also badly failed consequent to the resignation of Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Accountability under whom the Asset Recovery Unit was operating. Moreover, references prepared by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), also could not sustain the legal tests in the courts of law, thus raising many eyebrows.

The entire emphasis of the government has been to prosecute the two major political families only, with no recoveries up to now, despite the fact that there are hundreds of cases reported under the Panama and Pandora Leaks apart from other mega corruption cases in the country. The Prime Minister’s Inspection Commission (PMIC) was assigned to investigate the bureaucrats whose names appeared in the leaks, the outcome is awaited, however, not much can be expected as PMIC is neither technically equipped nor has the requisite expertise to investigate such white-collar crimes.

It is surprising to note that neither NAB nor any other organization has been able to estimate the annual cost of corruption and its implications to the nation. The then chairman NAB in 2012 once in an informal statement stated that the daily corruption in the country ranged between Rs. 8 billion to Rs. 10 billion, the basis of these estimates was not revealed. The Transparency International usually makes some reference on this account but even that is not all encompassing.

The committee on Reform of Tax Administration in Pakistan in its report as of April 2001 observed and concluded that fairly significant part of the revenue loss is due to corruption in the Tax Departments and the results suggested the following:

The corruption in the collection of federal taxes and duties is resulting in soaring fiscal deficit and lower tax to GDP ratio (currently 11.2%). Other developing countries’ ratio ranges from 17% to 21%. In other words, the tax collected in the year 2020-21, to the tune of about Rs. 4000 billion, is just 38% of the total tax potential of Rs. 10526 billion. The rest of 62% (Rs.6526 billion) could not be collected and was lost due to the connivance of taxpayers, collectors and practitioners, though the government has revised the collection targets.

Though a full-fledged study is required to assess the actual cost of corruption and its implications for the nation, but inquiries conducted by various anti-corruption organizations, Economic Survey of Pakistan 2020, Fiscal Budget 2020-21 and other reports, reveal annual estimated mega financial corruption in the following areas:

The above state of affairs reveals that at present there is no institution or body to check and control the menace of corruption, poor governance, and irrational macro-economic decisions. As a result, the country today is faced with the serious issues like (a) deceleration in growth, (b) soaring fiscal deficit, (c) artificial hyperinflation (especially food inflation), (d) widening trade and current account deficits, (e) poor domestic revenue mobilization, (f) unemployment, and last but not least (g) rampant and unchecked flight of capital and money laundering.

It is being argued and accentuated in the media that the FATF and IMF conditions will plunge Pakistan into a sovereign default, without realizing that it is the poor economic governance and ineffective accountability which have failed to control corruption in the country. Moreover, the economic managers should accept that sovereign default occurred the same day when they could not make indigenous policies to uplift the downtrodden and neglected sectors of the society. Time has come to prioritize good governance over anti-corruption activities which have now become counterproductive.