Accountability

Corruption in Pakistan is mainly due to the lack of accountability from the concerned departments and
transparency amongst the concerned departments responsible for curbing this menace. Corruption
includes:
1. Interest-based practices
2. Personal gains
3. Bribery
4. Extortion (obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats)
5. Fraud (documented + financial)
6. Embezzlement (theft or misappropriation of funds placed in one’s trust or belonging to one’s
employer)
7. Deception (disinformation)
8. Extravagant waste of public money
9. Illegitimate business dealings
10. Money laundering
11. Favouritism
12. Nepotism and Cronyism
 nepotism: practice among those in power or influence of favouring relatives, friends or
associates especially by giving them jobs.
 cronyism: appointment of friends and associates to positions of authority without
proper regard to their qualifications.
13. Using backdoor channels, and/or exploiting the official/departmental status for personal gains.
14. Breach of integrity (unauthorized or alteration of personal data).
15. Exploitation of resources in Pakistan.

Systemic corruption is where individual(s) or network(s)/organization(s) take advantage of weaknesses

in the processes and systems for illicit gains. These weaknesses are caused due to leadership
deficiencies, collusion (secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy in order to deceive others) and/or
abuse of power.

Pakistan inherited, enacted or established almost all the laws, rules and
institutions, which exist for accountability in any modern and civilized society.
The existing system of accountability has five types of applicability of laws. One
set of rules and laws are for the ruling elite. Another set of rules are for the
ruling civilian elite. The third category of rules is for the collaborators of the
ruling elite — the fourth for the rich and the powerful, and the fifth for the
ordinary citizens of Pakistan.
Accountability in Pakistan
 The Prevention of Corruption Act-1947 (PCA-1947), the Pakistan Penal Code-1860 (PPC-1860),
and the National Accountability Ordinance-1999 (NAO1999) are existing laws to deal with
corruption in Pakistan. National Anti-Corruption Strategy-2002 (NACS-2002) and NAO-1999 are
cited as comprehensive policy approaches to root out corruption from Pakistan.
 There are two Anti-Corruption Authorities (ACAs), National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Federal
Investigation Agency (FIA) at Federal level and four Anti-Corruption Establishments (ACEs)
operating at Provincial level, which are empowered to investigate into various cases of public
sector corruption.
 Accountability Courts have been established under NAO-1999 and deal with the cases sent by
NAB.
 The Central and Provincial Special Courts have been set up under the Criminal Law Amendment
Act-1958, to deal with the cases sent by FIA and ACEs, respectively.
 Besides offices/authorities like Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA), Public Accounts
Committees (PACs), the Judicial Commission, Election Commission of Pakistan, Auditor General
of Pakistan, there is another set of institutions like the State Bank of Pakistan, the Competition
Commission of Pakistan and the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan set up to check
financial irregularities and incidences of corruption and corrupt practices.
 Then, there are twelve independent institutions of Ombudsman (Mohtasib) at the federal and
provincial levels in Pakistan also established on the idea of the Islamic concept of 'administrative
accountability.' These Ombudsmen work independently to serve and protect citizens' interests.
The anti-corruption mechanism in Pakistan appears to be a complex web of laws and
institutions.
 Growing criticism is that the existing system of accountability is neither transparent (i.e. the
availability of accurate and desired information and correct feedbacks about various issues and
the commitments and performance of actors) nor across-the-board (i.e. applies to all), as the
laws and procedures are "discriminatory, influenced, in favour of the powerful, mala fide (i.e.
using your job or situation in order to gain an advantage) and tinted with the victimization of the
less powerful.

Causes of Weak Accountability

1. Inefficient Bureaucracy
 When distinct governmental institutions allegedly serve ruling coalition agendas
(Politicians), this process is called 'politicization' of systems, which in turn is the problem
with our bureaucracy.
2. Interference of Politicians in Judiciary
 The intertwined behaviour of the politics in judiciary in Pakistan has also been described
as 'politicization of the judiciary'.
 Which is why law enforcement is often subject to similar prejudices: as it successfully
manages the protocols and provides security to the political class, but it appears to be
vindictive and completely indifferent, when it comes to ordinary people.
3. Financial Bias given to Influential people
 Another example is the financial bias given to influential people. For example, abusing
tax amnesty to provide an opportunity for influential people to whiten their black
money.

4. Weak Structure of NAB

 NAB is the supreme anti-corruption authority of Pakistan. It was solely established to
eradicate corruption in a holistic and integrated manner (addressing all elements rather
than specific).
 Almost twenty years have passed since the existing system of accountability is in place.
There is a significant disjuncture between its vision and the actual outcome, as Pakistan
is presently facing the worst challenges of systemic corruption and an abhorrent state of
accountability.
 The Supreme Court of Pakistan has also pointed out serious maladministration,
improper procedures and lack of supervision in NAB.
 There is a necessity of rationalizing the NAB (i.e. reorganization of a company in order to
increase its efficiency).
 Recently, the NAO-1999 has been amended without any legislative input of all the
stakeholders, precisely in the way NACS-2002 was approved.
 It has not been free from political influence and is perceived as a tool in the hands of
sitting governments. It has been used as a tool of victimization by the government
regimes (against oppositions) more than holding corrupt officers accountable.
5. Weak and polarized environment
 Such examples suggest that accountability mechanisms have, indeed, been established
in fragile and polarized political and social environments with the false hopes that every
corrupt individual could be prosecuted through enforced laws.
6. Polarized and divided
 Institutions are polarized with prevalent internal conflicts and lack of consensus
building.
 The institutions need to be united, coherent and consistent to combat corruption.
 Institutions need to be transparent with one another, especially in terms of sharing
information, in order to hold corruptions accountable in the most effective way
possible.
 There is a need for an effective mechanism for coordinating the operations of various
government components to combat corruption.
 Moreover, to increase the efficacy of anti-corruption and other relevant institutions,
strong political backing, top leadership and sufficient resources need to be ensured.
 Also organizational independence, authority for greater accountability and investigative
powers and disclosure in the activities of all sectors needs to be ensured.
 Moreover, transparent accesses to information across departments and support for
whistleblowers need to be ensured.
 7. Victimization Over Reforms
 Regrettably, most of the accountability drives in Pakistan have been the typical witch-
hunting exercises to victimize the political opponents during the successive regimes.
 Therefore, in the absence of political will and required resolution on the part of their
policy formulators, all the accountability regimes have badly failed in evolving some
vibrant accountability institutions in Pakistan.
8. Influence of Ruling Coalition (the government)
 All employees of NAB up to Chairman NAB are government employees.
 No government employee has the spine to speak or act against the prime minister, no
matter how serious the allegation is against him.
 And in Pakistan where sycophancy happens to be the most effective ladder to reach the
higher positions in government or win favors, the chairman can only be expected to
suggest to the ‘ruling’ accused the ways and means to get exonerated.
 In other words, the institution whose role is to prosecute the accused will, practically, be
acting as their defense counsel.

Recommendations
 The process of putting policies into action shouldn't be an afterthought; rather, it should be
regarded as an essential component of the policymaking process from the very beginning.
 By ensuring that policies are fully implemented at all levels, including after the current
government's term expires, adhocracy in policies (flexibility of changing with every new govt.)
must be eliminated, and the sustainability or consistency of the system must be improved. This
will improve the likelihood that the system will continue functioning as intended for future
generations.
 Pakistan must adhere to a policymaking process that is very transparent in order to achieve
complete participation from all institutions.
 Like separate military and judiciary’s system of accountability, all the hearings of the NAB cases
that involve politicians of the acting government should be done by a parliamentary mechanism
for accountability which will comprise of the opposition parties.
 Government should pass a bill to legalize whistle blowers in both private and public sectors in all
institutions and at every level working as employees. This will keep the officials on their toes
knowing that their activities are being monitored from sources only known to the government.
 To promote and reward the process for whistle-blower information on wrongdoing and to
protect whistle-blowers from disadvantageous measures, a bill entitled 'Whistle-blower
Protection and Vigilance Commission' is still awaiting the consensual approval by the
parliament. It is, however, argued that while legislation is a step in the right direction, it
does not include coverage of the private sectors, since it is limited to complaints against
public office holders relating to specific offences.
 NAB is an adhocratic structure that changes with every change of government. Different
government regimes have changed its structure and policies as required for their gains. As an
example, the last government of PDM tried to limit NAB powers such as NAB could only deal
 with cases above 500 million rupees. Nevertheless, the corrupt members of the government
cleared their NAB cases by manipulating the structure and policies of NAB.
Conclusion
There is dire need to make efforts at policy level, to put into place systems and structures that can
eliminate corruption.

RAW
Disclosure: the action of making new or secret information known.
Exonerated: absolve (someone) from blame for a fault or wrongdoing.
Sycophancy: obsequious behaviour towards someone important in order to gain advantage.
Public Office Holder:
 “Public office holder” refers to any person working in the public sector, whether in
parliamentary, government or public institutions.
 "Holder of Public Office" means any person who has drawn any or some benefit. from public
exchequer in any scale or grade or in any office or position and shall include all whether elected,
nominated, selected or under any contractual.
Adhocracy is a flexible, adaptable and informal form of organization that is defined by a lack of formal
structure that employs specialized multidisciplinary teams grouped by functions. It operates in an
opposite fashion to a bureaucracy.

Polarization:
 Polarized society: different level of social groups with the most dominant at top.
 Mass and Media polarization: media and public polarization in their attitudes towards political
issues, policies, celebrated figures, and other citizens are neatly divided along party lines. At the
extreme, each camp questions the moral legitimacy of the other, viewing the opposing camp
and its policies as existential threat to their way of life or the nation as a whole.
 Political polarization is mainly between the party-in-government and the parties-in-opposition.
It is the divergence of political attitudes away from center, towards personal gains of power.