Plunderers of Pakistan & National Accountability

Pictorial Editorial

Asem Mustafa Awan: The slogan from the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has lost its meaning; it is a campaign gimmick that is to show the public that they are doing some work.

The funds, as shown in the audit, show that all is not well. The officials that have been removed from service, and for that matter, from the office on charges of corruption, speak volumes about the fraudulent activities going on in the very office that was formed to serve the masses.

Public Accounts Committee reports identify corrupt practises, but they end up on the shelves with nothing done.

The international index, as in the United Nations report on poverty, corruption, justice, and social services, has placed Pakistan in the bottom pit. The government, on the other hand, claims that all is well, and the fudge figures tell a different story every time.

The very image from the national accountability bureau has commoner scoffing at the department, which has long been a disappointment.

The compromises made for the national good make a commoner suffer, and those who grease the palms make good on their ill-gotten wealth that is beyond their means.

The ‘Pharoah,’ as in actuality, has a far lower mental drive to hurt people as compared to people who actually make people suffer in the land of the pure.

Putting aside the government and its projected figures, the independent observers on the ground tell a tale that is far more gruesome. Not a single government office is clean in its functioning; as internal departmental inquiries tell it all, the people hired to do the job did otherwise.

The great founding father of the nation, Quaid Muhammad Ali Jinnah, laid the foundation stone of the Anti-Corruption Department, and it has now been 75 years since its inception, but the performance of the said department is next to nothing.

The biggest cases in the history of Pakistan, as well as the perpetrators of these corrupt practises, have affected the entire nation, with over 220 million people bearing the brunt of the consequences. Pakistan, blessed with everything, is deliberately mismanaged to a level that leaves the world in awe, as this could happen in this time and age without any check.

The most recent calamity that hit Pakistan was the floods, and the international aid that was sent from around the world ended up in the warehouses of the powerful elite, who turned a blind eye to the millions of people facing death, disease, and hunger.

The question is: when the national exchequer is burdened with these white elephants that fail to deliver, what is the possible remedy that can curtail the public sentiment that abhors the very presence of these offices that suck the blood from the taxpayers and do nothing?

The recovery from plunderers in Pakistan needs to be projected, and the proposed plea bargain should be abolished, as those who suck life from the nation inadvertently are responsible for the financial murders of many millions.

Who is there to take them to task? Is this the question the masses have asked with hollowed and sunken eyes for decades? And they are right that there is no answer in sight.

The writer is a journalist based in Islamabad and writes on a wide range of issues.

Photo Credit: Raja Asim