- Antigraft bodies should be unified
By: Mohib Asad
The erasure, or at least a minimization, of corruption in the body-politic of the country has been a declared agenda by all political parties, is a dream of the public, and the desire of all right-thinking citizens. All governments in this country starting from Gen Ayub Khan in the 1960s have attempted to curb the menace in their own way, and according to their own understanding of the scene. One common thread running through as a single strand is that the bulk of corruption and corrupt practices is what is termed White Collar Crime (WCC) Most suspects of this typology of crime belong to the higher economic classes, and possess several white shirts worn with lounge suits. So, for ease of classification, criminologists have coined the term WCC.
Criminologists treat WCC as part of the broader category termed Organized Crime. Hundreds of detailed studies and research have identified a model of whitecollar criminality. It is an operation planned by one person, who puts together a group of informed people to assist him in skimming off funds from the public or the private sector. As opposed to other forms of organized crime, violence does not figure in WCC to a significant level, although this may not always be the case. The model of choice is:
WCC needs a single leader who has business connections with government, the judiciary, and the law enforcement apparatus. The organizer has a second tier who plan the operations ordered by the leader, using a third tier of operatives who do the day-to-day chores. The third tier generally does not know the leader. WCC always preys on large sums of money, the lion’s share going to the leader. The organizer has personal influence with senior functionaries who run the criminal justice system through graft or sharing of profit.
WCC is also sometimes classified as a ‘victimless crime’, as the economic loser of one of these crimes is not aware that he has been robbed merely for being an unsuspecting citizen. Thus when a politician, a bureaucrat, or a banker, skims off billions from an international tender for construction of a dam, you and I have no knowledge of the event as these matters are purposely kept opaque from the hoi polloi. Only the major actors in the scam know the details. The real victim, the taxpayer, is an ignorant bystander. No victim to register a case—so a ‘victimless crime’!
Unless we clean up our act, let’s be prepared to go hat in hand to the IMF for a sixteenth bail-out in three years’ time. By then the dollar will be worth Rs 200, if present trends continue
Due to the global village we live in now, with the Internet spanning all corners of the globe, WCC is now a trans-national offence. The steep rise in money laundering was noted with alarming concern by the international community in the last quarter of the 1900s. The result was the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) of 2005. Pakistan is a signatory and has since ratified this treaty. The UNCAC is largely concerned with WCC, money laundering and terrorist financing.
The extent of world-wide corruption was highlighted by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, when on 9 December 2018, in his message on the global Anti-corruption day, he said that around $3.6 trillion were being stolen or given in bribes each year. Most of this bleeding, which amounts to around five % of the global GDP, happens in developing countries. The Secretary-General said that “It robs societies of schools, hospitals and other vital services, drives away foreign investment and strips nations of their natural resources”. This is happening in Pakistan on a daily basis —and flagrantly.
The UNCAC had suggested that there should be only one single anti-corruption agency in the member states, which can then work with other members in the area of mutual legal aid. The NAB existed at the time of signing of the UNCAC treaty by us, and logically all provincial anti-corruption departments should have been brought under its purview. This was not done due to obvious political pressure. At the moment, there are myriad agencies dealing with WCC and affiliated offences.
Over the last two decades, hundreds of cases have been registered with the NAB, FIA, and the provincial anti-corruption departments. Although the conviction rate is low, yet hundreds of accused persons have been jailed, and billions recovered in cash and property. Yet, the image of the agencies responsible for putting down corruption is low in the public mind. Partly it is due the inordinate delay which is observed in the disposal of cases against high-profile politicians, and partly because the agencies do not publicize their good work; only get blamed for not doing enough.
I have had a life-long immersion in this aspect of law enforcement, both as a trained criminologist with a postgraduate degree in the subject from the UK, and as a career police officer. I know the complex highways and byways of this interesting crime, but the purpose of this article is not to point fingers or allocate praise or blame. Officers posted in these agencies know where the shoe pinches, and conspiracies abound, and the complexities of their day to day work. My purpose in this writing is different.
As the UN Secretary-General quoted above said, foreign investment does not go to countries which rank high on the international corruption index. Pakistan is at number 120 out of a total of 180 countries studied by the Transparency International during 2019. This unhappy state coupled with the highly unstable government that we have today does not augur well for the economy. To deal with the post-covid19 era, we need to improve our agricultural and industrial position. The local businessman invests in other countries like the UAE, Sri Lanka, and as far away as Vietnam. He earns windfall profits here and promptly transfers the non-tax paid wealth for profit abroad.
Therefore we need to improve our position in the Transparency list. Irrespective of all the criticism of international standards bodies like Moody’s, S&P, the WB, the IMF and so on as being inimical to Pakistan, the fact is that we are a country with a heavily indebted and poor government. In this global village we have to swim in fairly infested waters. But for sure we need to break this downward economic spiral, and the best way is to improve our WCC figures of conviction in courts.
The general public perception is that although Imran Khan is trying his very best to live up to his electoral promises of eradication of corruption in the nation, he is being thwarted by investigators, prosecutors, and the courts. Of these three organs of the law enforcement system, the most blame is being placed at the courts’ door. It is said that of all the scores of charge-sheets in court which are being vigorously followed by prosecutors, the courts tend to go soft on the accused for small lapses on the part of prosecutors, and technical legal glitches.
This public perception may or may not be true, but it fits in very well with the criminological model of WCC enunciated above. Unless we clean up our act, let’s be prepared to go hat in hand to the IMF for a sixteenth bail-out in three years’ time. By then the dollar will be worth Rs 200, if present trends continue. Not a very pleasant scenario─ except of course for the economic mafias running WCC so efficiently for their personal benefit.
The state of Pakistan is in peril. Accountability can be the oxygen to revive a faltering economy. Without financial vigour, defense, security and governance will each suffer. Minimization of WCC is an absolute imperative.
