Notorious Nawaz, Scandalous Sharifs’ & the Cirrhotic Corruption By Abdul Salam Dadabhoy

The human body works in strange ways: immunity comes with regularity to any external stimuli. The Pakistani people have become resilient, not by force but it seems, by choice, as scandals, bouts of injustice, corruption and imbalances in society hit home, much often than not. Where we head from her seems uncharted territory, a road only divinity knows. But the face of it doesn’t seem to be promising to say the least.

Fake Judicial Commissions and Joint Investigation Teams churning out scammed reports have marred the little confidence, if any left to the system, of the people who survive within.

Though there have been many a scandals, which have manifested in the past eight years, of the Pakistani leadership – five with Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples’ Party at the helm and three years of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz rule, with current incumbent Nawaz Sharif ruling the rooster, Panama Leaks and the colorful allegations associated with it have jolted and rocked the Pakistan people, like no other.

Finger pointing exercises comes as a congenital disorder of the government chair and clings on as parasite to the incumbents of it. Allegations and mudslinging, for audit and excavating the records of Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital, or criticizing the Opposition Party does not, or rather, should not, in any ways, discount the severity of the issue at hand. We are being led by a people, who are subject to intense accusations, treason, hoarding and illegal occupation of national assets and subsequent mutiny, to the current investigative eyes of the public.

Panama Papers are an outcome of a globally, well carried out investigation, thoroughly researched and investigated by a forum of international panel of journalists, who are exposed to operative strict libel and defamation laws in practice. It will be irresponsible on our part to attribute the reporting of the investigation to malicious intents of defamation, or to wrongly label it as unauthentic, unreasonable, and even forged.

In an address to the nation, the somber-sounding Prime Minister wishing to calm the storm whipping within announced, which basically implied that his kitchen cabinet would as usual pick and choose the judicial commission, which would investigate the offshore companies that questioned the business concerns of his family. The reports suggested that his three children were the owners, or had the authority to approve transactions for several companies. Furthermore, he committed to formal renunciation if proven guilty.

Panama papers besides exposing the amounts of money amassed and accumulated abroad also helped raised the following serious questions:

• • How did such massive amounts of wealth of the public and owed to the public go abroad?
  • Besides corruption and violation of public office and public trust, via kickbacks and commissions, is this not a clear case of national and international money laundering?
  • What is the difference in quantitative wealth of our leaders prior to coming to power and post it?
  • When such massive wealth is invested abroad why would our leaders prefer national interests over international priorities?
  • Over the years leading up to the investigations, why have the accused not filed rightful tax returns and therefore inadvertently stand accused of profuse tax evasion?
  • Why has the National Accountability Bureau or FIA not commissioned its formal investigations as yet?
  • Why have the judiciary and the Election Commission of Pakistan remained ever so silent?
  • If these incumbents are not a serious security threat to our national integrity, what is?

The Chief of Army Staff, General Raheel Sharif this week dismissed thirteen serving military officials on charges of corruption, a prodigal lifestyle and amassment of wealth beyond legal revenue channels. The dismissal of serving officers is a watershed event for a nation whose history is littered with exoneration of reputed people in the civil, government or public sector on grounds of corruption, power or bribe. Since then, the PML-N government has come under increasing weight to ensure that a transparent, independent investigation be done and the culprits be penalized or ostracized at a minimum.

Also to the credit of General Raheel Sharif is the successful operation of Zarb e Azb, to bring relative peace to the cosmopolitan city of Karachi, relegating its events of terror, decimating terrorist networks and most importantly restoring hope and confidence in the hearts of people, who are at the edge of a cliff, losing the will to aspire and dream.

On the civil front, hope manifests itself in the face of Imran Khan who, despite all odds and criticism, is the only honest politician and surprisingly the only official to have declared his assets in black and white. His claim that the current incumbent has lost the moral authority to lose is no lie or exaggeration.

Imran Khan and his party also hold the credit of depoliticizing the police force in KPK, dams construction, rehabilitation of damaged educational assets and technology incorporation in the province. The Guardian of UK recently termed him as Pakistan’s Mr Pure. One wonders why the Pakistani establishment does not see it as such and if it does why it does not lend a helping hand?

 

About the writer::

The author of this article is a Director of the Dadabhoy Group, he is an ardent writer / blogger and has served as Vice Chairman of the Korangi Association of Trade and Industry.

by webmaster@insaf.pk (tkiadmin)