Formula For Corruption Free Society!

We have heard that corruption has decreased and it is being celebrated.

People’s Party was backward in the sense that they did not know that it was necessary to take such steps along with corruption so that people felt corruption was being reduced. Former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani once said the news was wrong that his family had waiver of loans. One reporter said that the denial should have been issued. He replied that it is not necessary. I was of the view that this is wrong attitude. The same happened and now they refuse, nobody accepts. The PML-N has taken a different approach. Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan headed the Public Accounts Committee that held the PPP accountable on its all scandals but could not dare to touch the Rs. 4 billion scandal of his MNA Anjum Aqeel Khan, in which the speaker of the National Assembly Ayaz Sadiq’s relative, a former MD of the Police Foundation was also involved.

With the turn of the PPP, Khurshid Shah started giving clean chit to the Nawaz Sharif government from the PAC Forum. The largest clean chit was given about payments made to IPPs. Interestingly, Khurshid Shah’s committee has cleared in mere one year, the irregularities and corruption of Rs. 190 billion in circular debt while Saleem Mandviwala’s committee is still under investigation in the Senate. People’s Party is satisfied in the National Assembly while in the Senate it believes has occurred. What a beautiful spike.

The story of circular debt payments tells how steps have been taken to show that the “corruption” is reduced in Pakistan. It was only two weeks since Ishaq Dar was made finance minister, he ordered the State Bank to immediately pay close to $ 5 billion to IPPs and there is no need to get the bills checked from Auditor General Office instead they have been kept uninformed. Everything that IPPs put in the name of the bill was paid for. Within an hour, all this was done and the money was transferred to their accounts in Lahore. Even Zardari and Gillani did not have the courage to do this, as according to PPP, these IPPs have offered 30% commission to one of their ministers.

When Auditor General Akhtar Buland Rana found out, he started inquiries about how such a large sum of money was paid without pre-audit and verification of bills and without his permission. When the inquiry began, Ishaq Dar used Khurshid Shah’s PAC against the Auditor General to investigate how he had increased his salary by Rs. 30,000. Rana remained steadfast. When audited, it was found that over Rs. 190 billion was paid. A fine of over Rs. 30 billion was paid while interest of Rs. 22 billion. The penalties imposed by the government on IPPs were also waived. This audit report was settled with the help of Khurshid Shah. Ishaq Dar got a new law introduced that it is no longer required to get the bills confirmed by the auditor general. Ishaq Dar can pay billions of rupees to anyone without confirmation of the bills. For this, he brought a new law into the Parliament and got it approved without anyone knowing about it. What was a crime in PPP’s era has become a law in PML (N) government. To promote the corruption free image, it was important to remove Akhtar Buland Rana from the post of Auditor General and appoint someone obedient who may report that everything is good. Akhtar Buland Rana has been eye-popping since he revealed the Rs 30 billion scandal in the cheap bread scheme, and how loans were taken from the banks and billions of rupees has been paid as interest. It turned out that everyone was clever and decided not to give the Metro Bus documents to the audit, after they exposed the Danish School scandal. At the same time, fires started to break out in the offices where documents were kept and audits could be made.

The biggest incompetency was shown by the PTI when the head of the Public Accounts Committee in Punjab ruined the quality and powers of the committee when it could not take any action on the important corruption reports. What Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had done for the PPP government in Islamabad, PTI Punjab leadership could not do that or perhaps they struck a deal with Shahbaz Sharif and thus the Punjab became corruption-free. The guy brought to replace Akhtar Buland Rana was employed by Ishaq Dar on contract after retirement in the finance ministry. Thus, Rana Asad was brought as an Auditor General, who was once Ishaq Dar’s employee in his ministry. It is interesting that the day Rana Asad Amin took oath as the new Auditor General, the same day this department got the audit papers ready for his corruption’s audit, but now he is the head of that department. After that, there was no light in the lamps.

Secretary Treasury Waqar Masood was also audited how he illegally deposited millions in his pocket. The image still remains clean that no corruption is happening. The most expensive Euro bonds in the history were taken in United States. Four hundred and ten million dollars interest against five hundred million dollars. It was revealed that $ 75 million were sent by important people from Pakistan. When Salim Mandviwala asked for the names, Ishaq Dar’s ministry declined to give the names of how much money all have made.

In 2013, the Nandipur power plant project was worth Rs. 22 billion during the PPP era, which was contracted with the China for Rs. 57 billion by Shahbaz Sharif and now it has exceeded Rs. 80 billion. One day Nandipur project director Mahmood was fired with allegations of corruption and Shahbaz Sharif demanded of NAB to inquire into the corruption involved in the project. Now Shahbaz Sharif claims that no corruption was done in that project.

One day, it was revealed in the media that CDA is spending around Rs. 24 billion on a 26 km long road from Zero Point to Rawat. The CDA officer said that they are spending Rs. 1 billion per km while Rawalpindi Islamabad metro was completed at Rs. 2 billion per km. That means Rs. 1 billion was earned for every kilometre. This is also done in Metro Multan project, where Rs. 28 billion was spent on the 16 km long road.

During the People’s Party era, the head of transparency used to make a lot of noise. Nawaz Sharif hired them in the Prime Minister’s Secretariat. When the summary to make the former head of transparency an ambassador has been sent to the Prime Minister and a retired finance ministry officer has been posted as the Auditor General of Pakistan, on which the corruption cases have surfaced before he took office, then how can corruption reduce in Pakistan?

(Published in Monthly Tribute International on 01-01-2017)