Stop Sleaze

TA are neo-colonialist. corruption is easily treated if we all followed our religions faithfully (winky-wink) and is therfore high on the agenda of the next OIC meet, SGPC meet and the lecture to the current and future sheep by the pope.

Reference# Good True story.
Thanks for comment on lubrication theory.
You should take it seriously , Everything should be taken in good humour for survial.
Good wishes for coming new year 2005 be a great year.

FarooqA, whether in jest, or in right earnest, has pointed to a very pertinent aspect of the issue.


``It seems the govt has greased Transparency Intl`s palm to get a better rating.``

Just as a matter of curiosity, how transparent is Transparency International itself?

That is one aspect of the question.

Why the hell do we need Transparency International to tell us about the presence or otherwise and the magnitude of corruption in Pakistani society, and why the hell do we set so much store by what TI and and other such organizations have to say about Pakistan?

This is absolutely not to say that there isn`t corruption in Pakistan.

Corruption always has been a part of the Pakistani socio-cultural matrix, and will remain so till a whole lot of socio-cultural issues are understood, and effectively addressed.

There is the corruption practiced by the traffic constable and the LDC [Lower Division Clerk] in any government office. These people, with barely Rs.4,000/= per month salary, with bodies to feed and clothe, [often extended] families to support, bills to pay, healths to maintain, CANNOT survive without the bribes they take.

At the other end of the spectrum are those government functionaries, and yes, even apparatchiks and seths themselves in the private sector, who take fat kickbacks from international suppliers of goods and services via over-invoicing and other means.

Transparency International, ostensibly, concerns itself only with the corruption of politicians in power. Their definition of corruption would automatically exclude anything like subverting one`s oath to a constitution, intimidating judges, packing the judiciary with persons of a particular hue a`la Zia ul Haque, etc. etc. And, of course, judges delivering judgments patently bad in law and against all norms of justice, fairplay, equity, and just plain decency and commonsense, a handy example of which is the judgment handed down in the Wahab al Khairi case aka the Judges case by the Sajjad Ali Shah supreme court, a judgment which, ironically was used to oust Sajjad Ali Shah himself. With such corruption, Transparency International conveniently does not concern itself.

There are issues of corruption in Pakistan. We are alive to them, very much so. We do not need Transparency International to tell us of them, or rate us about them.

Siddiqua Haqnawaa

Where there is human society there is corruption. There’s no reason to believe this is going to change. I take the lubrication theory in good humour.
A Pakistani minister once visits United Kingdom. His counterpart takes him to visit Westminster. They become good pals. The British minister takes the Pakistani to his home. He shows him around his ‘nice’ bungalow and expects him to speak in praise. When the Pakistani minister remains quite, the British asks him, ‘I showed you around my home, didn’t you like it’.
Pakistani minister says he liked it very much but can’t understand how he could keep such a bungalow in his (declared) income.
The British minister takes him to a window. Pakistani minister looks out the window and sees a motorway. Five per cent spent on that motorway, says the British minister, my friend, was spent on my home. That’s how, he explains.
Next year on Pakistani minister’s invitation the British minister visits Pakistan. He’s shown around the regal parliament house. Then the Pakistani minister drives him to his palatial ‘modest home’. While he shows him around the British minister remains dumb silent.
Pakistani minister asks didn’t you like my home, you didn’t say a single word in its praise.
British minister says he likes it so much he would replace his own with it, but in his income he can’t afford even the gate of that home, so how come he owns that palace.
Pakistani minister takes him to a window. ‘What do you see’. The British minister looks very intently and sees nothing but a pot-holed mud-road. Pakistani minister says with pride. That’s a motorway, 95 per cent of the money was spent on my home.
That, my friends, is the only difference between developed and developing societies. Or the first world and the third world. Put any prefix instead of Pakistan, and the anecdote would still be as apt.

The point is well taken. Present situation crrouption is part of our culture. The author must never have bribed people. People like me who worked in real world of ``Karachi`` over 30 years of work in hospitality business can vouch corrouption is no more or less compared to 1070s. Its same, there is some inflation. A wise man considers corrouption as a Lubrication to run things smoothly specially economy.
Author should imagine a calamity with no corrouption as our countrymen do not work without lubrication. I always like to give lube to machine to work than good solid machine which does not need lube and does not start.
Moral lesson is corrouption is lubrication and makes hand dirty but its needed in Pakistan and is part and parcel of business.
I do not except any difference in land of Kafirs, kufr India or even in all mighty but nonexistentat Our Muslim Ummah.

Transparency Intl`s rating for Pakistan offers no surpises. Corruption seems to have seeped down to our bone marrow. No department in pakistan is immune from this cancer, not even the judiaciary or the self-styled saints, the army. What comes as a surprise is that Pakistan has improved its rating though there seems no change in our aberrant ways. In fact we continue to sink deeper into the abyss called corruption. It seems the govt has greased Transparency Intl`s palm to get a better rating. the morons who are at the helm will certainly flount this improvement as an achievement as once Nawaz government did. Just one visit to any public service department will reveal that there is hardly any improvement in the sitution. You cant get even the simplest of jobs done without paying a backhander. You need a bed in a hospital, you need your file seen by the Sahib, you want to admit your child in a school, you want molvi sahib pray for your ailing relative`s health, you need a seat in a train, just slip quitely a few notes in the pocket of the concerned person and you will get your job done. the police no wonder are the most notorious but the expertise of the army, bureaucracy and the judiciary make them look like novices.

``There’s always a next time, and in Pakistan, the government needs to do more to ensure next time our heads don’t hang low in shame.``

Subhaan Allah!

Of what government do you talk about? One that has itself been birthed by the worst sort of horse-trading, bribery, blackmail, and pure and simple ghundaa gardee?

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