Friendly accountability

NAB was laughingly known as 'Not Actually Bothered' and dismissed as another institution created to provide space for cronies

It has caused a political storm. How dare any institution have the gall to question a politician’s source of income, assets and dealings? First, it was the audacious Rangers and now the outrageous National Accountability Bureau (NAB). Beginning with the erratic attack by Altaf Hussain on being targeted by the Rangers and the fury of Asif Zardari against the army, to the tirade of Parvaiz Rashid and Ayaz Sadiq against NAB, the message is loud and clear: do not mess with the mess created by politicians. This may seem strange to any genuinely democratic country where accountability of politicians and public officials is the real cornerstone of the political system, but in Pakistan being a politician means having immunity from accountability. The Pakistani politicians’ stature of being holier than the law has made this sector a breeding ground of corruption.

Accountability is the missing link in most matters concerning politics. The usual modus of accountability is the one done by dictators on democrats. When General Ziaul Haq came into power he ensured a case against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, which resulted in his death sentence. Similarly, when Musharraf came to power he started a process of accountability that was compromised on the basis of some personal interests and external pressures. During the times of Benazir (and later Zardari) and Nawaz Sharif, accountability has been more of an election-winning slogan than any serious attempt to nail culprits. This friendly accountability was done under the guise of avoiding “political victimisation”. Thus, NAB was laughingly known as ‘Not Actually Bothered’ and dismissed as another institution created to provide space for cronies to look busy and do nothing on attractive salaries.

NAB was established in 1999 as Pakistan’s apex anti-corruption organization, assigned with the responsibility of elimination of corruption through a holistic approach of awareness, prevention and enforcement. However, the performance of this institution has been as questionable as the appointment of its head. The tradition used to be that the ruling government would appoint one of its loyalists as its head to protect the government and attack selectively those whom the government wanted to teach a lesson. The PPP appointed (retd) Admiral Fasih Bukhari as the NAB head. In the Rs 22 billion case of rental power on Raja Pervez Ashraf, Kamran Faisal was NAB’s chief investigator. While writing this report he was found dead in his room. He was alleged to have committed suicide but was later declared murdered by the Supreme Court (SC), but the case did not come to any conclusion because of lack of clinching evidence. In 2013, Chaudhry Nisar challenged the NAB chief’s position in the court on the grounds that the opposition was not consulted on this selection and thus Fasih Bukhari was asked to resign.

The PML-N appointed Qamaruz Zaman Chaudhry as the NAB chairman in October 2013. His appointment came under heavy criticism by other opposition parties due to his dubious credentials. He was an Aide-de-Camp (ADC) of Ziaul Haq, then a bureaucrat under various regimes and is a PML-N loyalist. On becoming the chairman his own case of six billion rupees in the National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) scam was under NAB investigation. Herein lies the comedy of errors: NAB officials who are reporting to him investigate him and exonerate him from this scam. Cases on Khursheed Shah and President Zardari are quickly put aside and friendly accountability process in this “conducive environment” starts all over again.

This saga of you-overlook-my cases-and-I-will-overlook-yours continued till a case filed by Manzoor Ahmed Ghauri against chairman NAB and other officials shook up the judiciary. The case, initiated earlier this year, pertains to scrutiny of the anti-corruption body. The SC ordered NAB to report on its performance and that has opened a Pandora’s box. Some 150 mega corruption cases have been brought to the court, amounting to an estimated Rs 425 billion of alleged corruption money. The names of the accused are in the who’s who list. All stalwarts of the PPP and all superstars of the PML-N figure in scandals to the most horrific level. For example, one of the enquiries being carried out against the incumbent Prime Minister (PM) and his brother in a case pertains to the construction of a road from Raiwind to the Sharif family house, worth Rs 126 million. A similar enquiry is under process against ex-premier Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain and another against the sitting finance minister, Ishaq Dar. He is under inquiry for three cases of Pounds 23 million, $ 3,488 million and $ 1,250 million respectively.

Some of the enquiries are 13 years old and have been successfully suppressed to fade away from public memory. Not only has NAB been excellent in pushing politicians’ dirt away but has also managed to use the strange rule of plea bargain to pardon offenders who have confessed to these horrible crimes. Plea bargain is a plea of the guilty: return of a certain amount in exchange for lesser punishment. Such a person is disqualified from holding public office and obtaining loan from a bank. This is not only terrible but is also criminal. Take the case of the Sharif loan default: how were the PM and Chief Minister (CM) able to contest the elections in 2013 being defaulters? Shahbaz Sharif has admitted that the Sharif family had settled Rs 5.22 billion by December 2014.

So, here it goes: cases are filed against corruption, they are sent to NAB, NAB’s officials themselves are under investigation, they are answerable to people against whom these cases are filed, they delay for decades, do plea bargains, exonerate all who are with their bosses and threaten to investigate those who are against their bosses. In the end, a win-win happy family scene occurs, where the NAB chief is investigated by his juniors in NAB and given a clean chit, and the political musical chairs resume taking turns at government. Thus, when NAB does not obey the orders of its bosses and obeys orders of the SC, all hell breaks loose.

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The power of democracy

The IMF classifies Pakistan as its most obedient client that will obey its demands even against the wishes of the people

The power of people should always be more than the people in power. Rarely has this statement describing true democracy been more on display than in the recent referendum in Greece. A country on the verge of bankruptcy, a country where banks have shut down due to a liquidity crunch, a country whose membership in the Eurozone was at stake, decides that its independence and freedom of choice matters more than the dictates of outside stakeholders. This is not an easy decision; it will have multiple repercussions but in democracy the will of the people brings collective responsibility and ownership that eventually strengthens governments to plan better, choose better, bargain better and ultimately do better for their majority constituents.

Why talk of Greece? Believe it or not the country has many similarities to Pakistan. It has been a troubled child of the EU for the last decade and while other countries under pressure in Europe, like Spain and Portugal, have ridden over the crisis better, Greece has just managed to get out of one crisis to get into a deeper one. Like Pakistan, Greece has been dominated by dynastic politics that ousted army colonels. The head of the centre-left Papandreou clan, George, held power before a junta of army colonels ruled from 1967 to 1974. His son Andreas then took the flame, creating the political party Pasok and becoming the first Socialist head of government in 1981. Grandson George served as prime minister from October 2009 until November 2011.

On the right, the Karamanlis and Mitsotakis families stand out. Constantine Karamanlis led the first government after the colonels were ousted and served as Greek president from 1980 to 1985 and 1990 to 1995. His nephew, Costas Karamanlis, led the government from 2004 to 2009. That is the time recession hit the world and the global financial crisis exposed weak economies in Europe. As weak governments do, they resorted to debt bailouts without strengthening economic fundamentals. The result was that Greece’s financial crisis has grown steadily, with public debt climbing from 107 percent of national output in 2007 to 177 percent last year against a Eurozone limit of 60 percent. As in Pakistan, tax collection has been dismal and big industries like shipping have resisted tax measures. The IMF/ECB/EC thus imposed an austerity plan on Greece that has severely affected the socio-economic base of ordinary Greeks. Joblessness has grown as industrial growth lags and youth unemployment jumped from 21 percent to 60 percent.

With an angry population and restive youth, enter Alexis Tsipras as a change catalyst. He is young (only 40 years old) and against dynastic politics, and politics of debt for more debt. His party, Syriza, won almost a majority on its anti-bailout campaign in 2015 and the two non-traditionalists of these parties became the symbols of change, i.e. Tsipras and Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. Tsipras climbed a greasy pole from a life of leftist activism to lead his unlikely coalition while Varoufakis, an economics professor, was drafted into politics less than a year ago. They tried to negotiate a package with the hard-nosed combination of the IMF and ECB but could not come up with a win-win formula. When the government’s power could not break the shackles of these immensely powerful institutions, Tsipras went back to his public and announced that a referendum would take place to decide whether they wanted to accept the package or say no. The result was an astounding no despite the danger of being thrown out of the Eurozone.

Pakistan may not be in these dire straits but has become as entrapped in this debt for debt situation as Greece has. In Greece, the typical IMF formula of capping the budget deficit and reducing pensions and subsidies to the less well off created extreme hardship for the majority. In Pakistan, identical issues of keeping the budget deficit in control and not doing tax reforms have resulted in deficits in all economic targets like exports, manufacturing and agriculture. The PPP government went merrily to the IMF every time the exorbitant expenditures of the government had to be financed from borrowed sources. The PML-N government, despite all claims of breaking the begging bowl, has done the same. Like Greece, the debt percentage has increased to 63 percent in violation of the limits of 60 percent defined in the Constitution of Pakistan. What has happened in Greece is what has been happening in Pakistan for decades.

The IMF is a lending agency whose job is to find countries to whom they can lend and then get back their money on their terms. Their terms are notorious for making a borrower so dependent and so enslaved that it gets into a deeper and deeper financial hole. The present government has increased the electricity tariff by 80 percent in two years and, despite the 1,500 deaths in Karachi due to heat and load shedding, has asked K-Electric to increase prices again. The IMF classifies Pakistan as its most obedient client that will obey its demands even against the wishes of the people of the country.

Herein lies the difference between true democracies and sham democracies, the difference between bold leadership and cold leadership, the difference between an aware and vociferous public and an unaware and suppressed pubic. The Greek government, in the true spirit of democracy, has gone back to let the public decide whether the troika of lenders will dictate the terms or whether the will of the people of Greece will also be part of the negotiations deal. Pakistan, in its true spirit of sham democracy, does not even go back to parliament to debate and approve new taxes. Ishaq Dar has passed four increases in taxes on petroleum and electricity singlehandedly without even a debate in parliament. The most controversial budget was passed while the opposition was out of the National Assembly protesting against the Karachi deaths. This is the autocratic democracy being practiced in the country.

In Greece, the finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, who wanted a no vote in the referendum, even after getting that vote, resigned as he felt that his abrasive style of negotiations may not get the Greek people the deal they wanted. This level of integrity only comes when you are obedient to the voter and not to those who give you money and positions. Even the image of how Yanis walked out of his office after resigning spoke volumes about what true representatives of the people are. A minister in our country would be surrounded by his followers and his security, and would be driven in bulletproof cars with black windows. But the finance minister of Greece, wearing his jeans and shirt, picked up his helmet, sat on his motorbike and sped away, one among many, returning home after the job.

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The great escape

Once you bend the rules, you actually bend yourself to every compromise

A billion bucks scandal, the big and powerful suppressing the poor and powerless, Spiderman intervenes and hounds them, dons and mafiosi escape leaving room for the next sequel. This is not a Hollywood fantasy but Pakistani reality. This has been the live and running serial going on in Pakistan for over six decades. Every government comes in the guise of a saviour claiming freedom from loot and plunder, and every government becomes part of a larger share in the pie for the same loot and plunder. As the heat turns up, it packs its bags for cooler havens abroad only to be back when its successors become even bigger looters. This is why the present clean up operation in the country is being looked at with the disbelief of this just being another sequel of so many episodes that end up making room for another sequel. However, as in movies where the sequel reaches its fourth or fifth version, it stops attracting audiences. Similarly, in Pakistan, these operation clean ups’ inability to provide a happily ever after ending has cast doubts on the latest one being the beginning of the end.

The theme of “they came, they looted, they escaped, they returned” sequence started after the demise of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Ziaul Haq. Bhutto started with the cleanup operation slogan of roti, kapra aur makaan (food, clothing and shelter) and became the symbol of a saviour of the poor. Unfortunately, despite his charisma and his cult following, his own insecurities got the better of him. The 1977 elections’ rigging and opposition unrest gave space to General Ziaul Haq to come as a saviour and protect the country from corrupt politicians. General Zia became President Zia and his 90-day promise elongated into 11 years of serving US interests before finally he died in a plane crash.

Then came the illustrious, democratic musical chairs where every two years Messrs Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto ousted each other in the name of cleaning up the mess and establishing democracy. Each time the country’s assets went down while the assets of our leaders multiplied exponentially. Enter the saviour once again in the form of Musharraf who looked the most promising at the clean up job as he convicted and jailed the big guns. Nawaz Sharif was arrested and given life sentence on multiple charges of corruption and hijacking, and for a while that looked like the end of the story. Not so. Barely 14 months later Nawaz and 18 members of his family were whisked off to Jeddah due to a 10-year deal between Musharraf and the Saudi government. The Sharifs escaped to the holy land to relish the billions they had looted and stowed in Saudi Arabia and the UK. Meanwhile, Benazir Bhutto managed to escape to Dubai and London. Meanwhile, Asif Zardari, who was in jail for more than eight years, was also allowed to leave the country and preferred to bask in the glory of US soil to recoup for a future return to Pakistan.

Musharraf brought in a cabinet of professional technocrats who were perceived to be doing what the politicians had failed to do. To head this cabinet he imported Shaukat Aziz and stage-managed his political eligibility by making him get a miraculous 100,000 votes from Thar. Since Shaukat Aziz was a well-known international banker, there was the comfort that he would be able to do what politicians could not, i.e. improve governance and stay away from graft and greed. But once you bend the rules, you actually bend yourself to every compromise. That is what happened to Musharraf who, in order to legitimise his political illegitimacy, went back to the same old rotten politicians he had vowed to expunge. As the cry for his autocratic rule to end became louder, he signed the infamous National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) to set all the scoundrels free and enabled them to make a comeback to the political scene with a vengeance.

Shaukat Aziz’s claim to fame was not his governance management but his gift management. It was an amazing gift list of over 1,000 items, of which one-third were not even reported by Shaukat Aziz. The cost of these state gifts runs into millions. The gifts included diamond necklaces, gold ornaments, pearls, Persian carpets, jewelled wristwatches, vases, chandeliers, etc. He neatly packed containers of these gifts for his family in London and the US, and left the country. Not to be outdone by his junior, President Musharraf had a list of super expensive state gifts given by many heads of states that he took with himself after exonerating all murderers and criminals through the NRO to seek cooler pastures abroad. As the 2013 elections came nearer, and as he saw democratic governments fail yet again, he made a comeback only to become a part of the old vendetta of Nawaz versus Musharraf. These political Godfathers escape to foreign lands when the heat is on knowing that it will only be a matter of time before they get the space to return.

Altaf Hussain’s case is unique as he left the country in 1992 but has never really left it. With a stake in every government due to a major hold over Karachi, there have always been allegations of the MQM being a money and murder mafia. Despite that no government has had the guts to really pursue the MQM as they need this party to remain in power. Thus goes the story so far of how most of our leaders have plundered the country, have been convicted of murders, corruption and extortion, and have finally escaped abroad to live off their looted riches, ready to make a comeback through some national or international deal. Therefore, when the present operation took place against the MQM and PPP, most analysts felt it was like déjà vu. Twice before the government and army have promised this clean up and have compromised for power but, admittedly, things have never really gone this far before where foreign countries — UK and India included — are now being approached to close the circle.

However, there are questions that need to be answered. As the noose tightened around the neck of the Zardari family where billions have been discovered in the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and fisheries scandal, why has the family been let go? The other question is, is this noose also going to be around those parties that have been shielding and promoting terrorist organisations in Punjab and other provinces? Thirdly, is this noose going to cover corrupt army officers, judges and bureaucrats? The answer to these questions will lead us to determine whether this horror/thriller will end up with another sequel of the Return of the Godfather or whether it will finally be that Spiderman kills and buries all these mafias to free the country from the forces of evil.

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