Economy and Accountability, the Inseparable Twins
On Thursday Jan 25, the military regime will have been in power, give or take a few hours, for a full 100 days. With the masses waiting with increasing impatience and cynicism for their “great expectations” to be fulfilled, some forward movement is discernible both in effecting accountability and in repairing the economy, enough not to write the khakis off just yet. The rumour machine, fed by motivated interests, has been working overtime. Gearing up for accountability has taken some time, not helped by the badly drafted Ordinance creating the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), a dozen or so holes appearing in it the moment it was unfolded for public view. As for economic revival, the measures enacted are in the right direction but the tap-dancing with respect to tough decision-making about GST, etc must come to an end. Cheap popularity comes with populist initiatives but that will hardly be the salvation of Pakistan economically. Sustainable long-term measures may be temporarily unpopular, that is the only way out of the black hole we are in presently mired in.
One cannot forsake public perception, for the sake of our present rulers NAB has to come good quickly. Given that investigation and prosecution of white-collar crime is not a piece of cake, NAB should have first gone for those easily nabbed. All politicians, who took part in the 1990, 1993 and 1997 elections, have had to declare their assets. The discrepancies/deficiencies between their declarations and income/wealth tax returns would be guilt enough to convict them for a period extending from 1-3 years, the conviction automatically disqualifying them for a period of not less than 10 years. Since the evidence is a matter of record, the process would hardly take more than 2-3 weeks. A more detailed scrutiny could then be done in a more elaborate fashion and acquisition of wealth beyond known means would then become a reason for further conviction, confiscation of illegally acquired property (with penalty thereof) and enhancement of the period of disqualification. This exercise would eliminate almost 60% of all politicians who took part in any of the last 3 elections, the first phase taking care of the impatient public desire for punitive action against those who they trusted in vain with their valuable votes to give them good governance.
