The Limits of Accountability?
Third World media has a reflex tendency to quietly bemoan its impotence as regards corruption within the bureaucracy. Unlike in the FIRST WORLD, the media’s enthusiasm to do investigative reporting is dampened by an administrative bag of tricks which would put Merlin the Magician to shame. Since the Government’s advertising releases translate into economic survival of the newspapers and magazines, the name of the game normally is that “fools rush in, where angels fear to tread.”
One of our elected officials has no such inhibition, however, and if it were left upto him, he would have corrupt public officials shot. Sardarzada Mohammad Ali Shah, who chairs the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), recently vented his understandable frustrations in public at the futility of it all, including the fact that he had to submit his resignation thrice before getting the PAC reports for 1981-85 placed before the National Assembly. Now that the Sardarzada has openly declared “war”, he should shore up his own defences, lest the powers that be ensure that the “catcher lands up in the rye.”
So many centuries ago when our beloved Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) annunciated THE MESSAGE, economic inequality because of an unfair social system was one of the fundamental basis for change. Islam as a way of life had accountability in all the walks of life as a cardinal premise for a better future for the masses. Less than 50 years ago, our forefathers led by a man of sublime vision broke the shackles of future economic servitude under the aegis of an alien religion by the “The Pakistan Resolution”. Muslim economic emancipation in the South Asian sub-continent and beyond owes a debt of gratitude to these men of far-sighted vision i.e. the Quaid and his close advisers.
What our Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) accomplished by way of religion more than 14 centuries ago and the Quaid safeguarded by way of politics half a century ago, has been almost lost to us in a welter of corruption, nepotism and greed, so widespread that it has permeated every sphere of life in Pakistan. Without going into the degenerating effects on society as a whole one can say that corruption and its cousins work as a debilitating catalyst inspiring frustration, one that usually culminates in a violent social upheaval. There are profound limits to the patience of human beings and economic subjugation in an unjust system tests the frontiers of human fortitude. Accountability forms an important factor in the checklist of freedom, the ability to keep a restraint over wrongdoing, a type of non-supervisory check over the watchdogs to make sure they do not eat the chickens in the coop they are supposed to guard.
During the past few years, realization at the highest level that social malfeasance may lead to economic apocalypse has resulted in a number of measures to ensure accountability, the prime ones being the institution of the Federal Ombudsman, Federal Anti-Corruption Committee and the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly. Each of these institutions have had some limited success despite all the bureaucratic hurdles thrown in their respective paths. The President and the Prime Minister have got their hearts in the right place, it is just that they must increase the frequency of their involvement with these watchdog Committees to ensure that obstacles strewn in their respective paths by the administrative apparatchik do not become insurmountable.
Economically speaking, corruption brings mixed blessings. On the one hand you get a broad mass of people who get totally frustrated with doing any business with the Government and its statutory Corporations, resulting in loss of faith in any commercial dealing with the Government followed by their withdrawal from entering public tenders, taking away the competitive factor from bidding. On the other hand, you have an influx of black money into a parallel economy keeping the economic life resurgent. Rather than being a blessing, it actually is a cancer that eats away at the fabric of society, threatening to make the norms of accepted behaviour topsy-turvy. Various ethnic conflicts engulfing Karachi are deep-rooted because of economic imbalance.
Recently, the Federal Ombudsman has presented his Annual Report to the President and the Prime Minister. Despite the inherent handicaps, the Ombudsman performance has been par excellence and this institution is a laudable feather in the cap for General Zia. Any arrangement that provides a statutory check on the blatant misuse of authority for corruption, nepotism, favouritism and other malfeasance associated with occupation of a seat of power is commendable. The President has to be congratulated for establishing an institution free from malpractice, giving genuine relief to complainants without fear or favour and available to all those who knock on that door of justice for succour. Recalcitrants must note that given the advances of technology, the inordinate increase of population, the myriad number of problems, the inception of the Federal Ombudsman’s office provides a ray of hope for those, in an otherwise unjust society, who neither have the money nor friends and relatives in high places to seek justice as it should really stand for the meaning of justice.
Given that the Federal Ombudsman will render justice impartially there always lurks a fear in the minds of the complainant that the bureaucracy will ultimately somehow get even, with their own particular brand of “justice” — and that can be quite vicious. Unless the Government can devise a safeguard mechanism that can give an innate sense of security, complaints against the misuse of authority are not only likely to be muted but few and far between. That particular sense of purpose can be inculcated in the population only if the complainants believe that retaliation by the bureaucrats can be precluded by direct intervention of the President and the Prime Minister. That is the ultimate test of the efficacy of the Ombudsman-ship and the rising to this challenge, if and when made, will determine the results of the system. Footprints in the sands of time are likely to be erased but the rendering of justice is usually carved in the minds of men for generations. History has recorded the acts of many a just ruler, remembering his penchant for justice with applause even centuries thereafter, almost as if in folklore; sometimes true justice is indeed a dream.
Islam’s primary concern after establishing fidelity to one GOD and his Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him), was to develop a fair equitable economic system. The social structure of a State can be determined by the financial distance between the richest and the poorest. Within the distance, which must not be large, lies a large body of populace known as the middle class. This middle class represents the quality of life of a nation. If the rich become richer and the poor get poorer, the system becomes vulnerable to change. As the frustration mounts, the first casualty is usually religion. Due to far-sightedness by the local Catholic hierarchy in Latin America inasfar as their support for the masses is concerned, the dissent has now been muted to an extent in that area, but elsewhere the results have been catastrophic for religion. This hint of fundamental change, always lurking beneath a thin veneer of calm routine, is subject to violent extremes, given that the frustrations of the public at the limits of accountability come to a head.
The President of Pakistan has perfected the art of gaining time for Pakistan and this is meant as a compliment. We have seen this in the elongation of the talks for an Afghan Accord till a solution favourable to Pakistan is now in the offing. Of more immediate interest to us was his “cricket diplomacy” in the face of grave Indian provocation, a la “Brass Tacks”. The institution of the office of the Federal Ombudsman has given us in Pakistan time to assess our situation at a crossroads of sorts. The premise is that there are no limits to the process of accountability. Our whole concept of religion devolves upon faith and belief, in God and his Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) and in the teachings of the Quran, which includes affinity with the people of the Books i.e the Torah and the Bible. The alternative is communism, a Godless society denying the individual every fundamental right known to man, in the name of “freedom”. We must therefore develop a belief in the system to sustain our freedom from the “freedom” being promised to us, very much in the manner being practiced on the people of Afghanistan today with helicopter gunships.
Economic freedom is guaranteed by a measure of accountability. The freedom to take part in commercial activity without extraneous reasons and/or circumstances based on vested interests dictating the rewards will nurture genuine national economic emancipation. There are no limits on accountability in the context of officialdom, particularly in Third World countries with semi-nationalised economics. The limits of accountability allowing merit to flourish will dictate the quantum of economic progress that a nation can make.
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