Brief history[edit]
"Corruption
is a curse in India and amongst Muslims, especially the so-called educated and
intelligentsia. Unfortunately, it is this class that is selfish and morally and
intellectually corrupt. No doubt this disease is common, but amongst this particular
class of Muslims it is rampant."
Pakistan founder Jinnah's letter to Ispahani,
6 May 1945[12]
The Dominion of Pakistan was created as a
result of the Pakistan Movement in 1947. Upon gaining
independence, Pakistan inherited a strong bureaucracy and army from
the British
Raj. There has since been no major change in this bureaucratic set up since
it was first implemented by British, albeit reforms were proposed by the Musharraf
regime in 2007. This has led many to speculate that "corruption
has seeped into the higher echelons of bureaucracy" where "corruption
cases are [mostly] reported against irregular and ex-cadre appointments".[13] It
was by the late 1960s that the bureaucracy started being portrayed as an "instrument
of oppression".[14] In
multiple reports published by the World Bank,
the Pakistani bureaucracy was seen as being rife with corruption, inefficient
and bloated in size with an absence of accountability and resistant to change.[15][16][17][18]
Bureaucracy and secession of East Pakistan: 19541971[edit]
Bhutto
introduced the nationalisation programme in
order to revitalise the economy but these policies
were used by certain individual and groups to accumulate gain.
The bureaucratic
influence was strong in the western provinces of Pakistan while
the eastern province retained a majority of the
population.[19] On
22 November 1954, bureaucratic administrators moved a resolution to merge the
four western provinces into a single unit called West
Pakistan. This led to public outcry in East Pakistan who felt that they
were being misrepresented and systematically marginalised
by the land-owning Punjabi Muslim elites who enjoyed higher bureaucratic
positions at the time.[20] This
led to the secession of East Pakistan into the
separate nation state of Bangladesh and lay witness to the corrupt
malpractices of the Punjabi elite in West Pakistan. Punjabis argued that East
Pakistan's majority was a consequence of the high percentage of Bengali Hindus
in the province[21] who
were not involved in the state's decision-making processes. Thus, the Punjabi
landowners remained largely unrepentant of their desires to "[secure]
their own hegemony"leading
to the loss of the eastern province in 1971.[22][23]
Nationalisation politicises economic
planning: 19731977[edit]
After Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came into power
in 1973, he introduced a planned
economic system to revitalise the stagnant
economy. This led to the introduction of the nationalisation programme bringing
entire private industrial corporations under the government ownership.[24] In
1974, Bhutto cancelled the fourth five-year plans bypassing
the recommendations of the Planning Commission, focusing
entirely on broadening government control over private business enterprises. In
doing so, Bhutto's government began the politicisation
of economic planning.
Political
interference opened doors for corrupt political practices to seep into the
nation's economic planning processes. The nationalisation
programme badly affected the reputation of the Pakistan Peoples Party.
Accumulated losses of up to Rs 254
million were reported with several instances of over-staffing and inefficient
productivity in heavy mechanical industries.[25] By
1976, the state had been hijacked by group and individuals trying to accumulate
wealth by redistributing resources from public enterprises to private
individuals. Public enterprises "became a device to extend
political patronage to those that the regime favoured,
to pay political debts, or to accumulate power".[26]
Denationalisation and political favouritism:
19781988[edit]
Bhutto's nationalisation programme lost
its appeal towards the end of his government's term and the demand for denationalisation gained more currency. The successive
government of military chief and president Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq released a whitepaper that led to the creation
of a commission under Pakistan
Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation (PICIC) to reverse
earlier nationalisation efforts.[27] Not
much was achieved in this regard and only three industries, including future prime minister Nawaz
Sharif's conglomerate Ittefaq
Group of Industries, were ever denationalised
and returned to their owners. Many argue that Sharif was favoured
in this process because he was a political protιgι of the military dictator at
the helm.[28][29]
Unprecedented
political corruption: 20082013[edit]
Yousaf Raza Gillani became the first head of state to be
convicted while holding office and later disqualified on charges of loan
defaulting.
In
2012, Transparency International (TI)
calculated that Pakistan had lost more than Rs 8.5
trillion (US$ 94 billion) in corruption, tax
evasion and bad governance in the PPP-led coalition government from 2008 to
2013, and from 2013 to 2017 while Nawaz Sharif in power have severe allegations
of corruption. Adil Gillani,
an advisor for TI Pakistan observed that if Pakistan checks the menace of
corruption and ensures good governance, it would not require a single penny
from the outside world. The 20082013 PPP-led coalition government is criticised as being the most corrupt in the country's
history.[30] The
free and powerful local media in Pakistan exposed various cases of corruption
during the government's tenure including cases of bribery and corruption in
government-owned enterprises like Pakistan International Airlines[31] and Pakistan
Railways.[32]
On 29 March
2012, a civilian resident of Johar Town Lahore, Tariq
Ahmed, filed a court petition in the Lahore
High Court, seeking to hear the case of disqualification of prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani.[33] The
plea was filed in the High Court in which the petitioner took the stance that
"Fauzia Gillani
spouse of prime minister Gillani received loans of
millions of rupees from the Agriculture Development Bank Ltd (ADB) and
the National Bank of Pakistan for the
two mega-corporations owned by the Gillani family of
which Fauzia Gillani served
both megacorporations as executive director. None of
the loans of millions of rupees were paid back to the banks.[33] When
the disqualification petition was put to rest by the ruling of the Speaker of the National
Assembly Dr Fehmida
Mirza citing that the petition did not hold ground, Gillani was convicted on the charges of Contempt
of Court. Gillani became Pakistan's first prime
minister to be convicted while holding office[34] and
was later sentenced and disqualified. Gillani
is prudently criticised for a prolonged era of stagflation, in which
fundamental economic problems were ignored, government was mismanaged and
corruption was endemic.