Mr Moeen Qureshi has done a splendid job by publishing lists of those whoever defaulted on bank loans and utility bills. Justice Abdul Majeed Tiwana has done better. He has told us the names of all those whoever looted the Baitul Mall and Jahez Funds or pocketed plum pieces of real estate for a song in the Punjab. Jointly, they have indicted thousands of politicians and businessmen. And rightly so.
But we wonder why Mr Qureshi is dragging his feet over the felonies of two social groups — the bureaucracy-judiciary and the Islamic fundamentalist parties. We’re also dismayed that roadblocks have been erected in the path of Justice Tiwana and the press has been banned from reporting his judgements.
Since the time of General Zia ul Haq, the fundamentalist Islamic parties, especially the Jamaat-i-Islami, have enjoyed undue power and privilege. Pampered beyond redemption, the fundamentalists have infiltrated and destroyed the education system, siphoned off funds and arms meant for the Afghan Jihad and milked the Ministry of Religious Affairs dry. They have also dipped into every intelligence agency’s secret financial pool in the name of the Kashmir Jihad. It is time we were told how they’ve been fattened up by previous governments.
A good place to start is the Ministry of Religious Affairs. As Maulana Abdul Sattar Niazi’s case proves, the Religious Affairs ministry dished out hundreds of millions of rupees to the mullahs, ostensibly to set up mosques and madrassas. Where much of the money actually went is anybody’s guess — in hundreds of cases the mosques and madrassas only exist on paper. In others, the mullahs were ingenious enough to set aside part of the free funds and land for commercial use, which is illegal. Will Mr Qureshi scrutinize such allocations and publish lists of all those God-fearing men with holy white beards who have “defaulted” on religious grants? We would also like to know the source (local or foreign) of funding for the Jamaat-i-Islami’s many “institutes”, including its expensive Pasban functions and front page advertisements in the press. A peep into the discretionary allocations of provincial chief ministers, especially in Balochistan province, should also reveal much wrong-doing by the beards. In the Punjab, the Sipah Sahaba’s drug connections certainly need to be checked out.
The bureaucracy, too, seems to have got away scot-free. As the case of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court proves, previous governments have all too readily “relaxed the rules” to accommodate the “pressing needs” of senior bureaucrats and judges with plots of land. There must be hundreds of bureaucrats whoever been lavished with several plots of prime land. Prime minister Qureshi’s principal secretary, for one, seems to be perennially in need of assistance. Many civil servants have built commercial plazas or marble palaces and are still hankering for more, like modern-day Oliver Twists. Well Mr Qureshi or Justice Samdani give us a list of all those civil servants and judges who have received such favours from past governments and have accumulated vast, unaudited fortunes? Probably not.
Mr Qureshi says the bureaucracy is demoralised and needs rehabilitation. He seems to hold politicians responsible for the erosion of the “steel frame” of government. He may be partially right. Still, it takes two hands to clap. And there is no doubting the fact that the bureaucracy has become notoriously corrupt, inefficient and politically biased. What purpose can be served, we wonder, by trying to protect such civil servants by making allowances for their dismal behaviour? The proper thing would be to take a broom and sweep them all away, thereby making room for hundreds of youngsters desperately keen to ‘serve’ the nation.
Justice Abdul Majeed Tiwana of the Lahore High Court has been so contemptuously thwarted by ‘friends’ and ‘foes’ alike that he has thrown up his hands in disgust and is thinking of quitting. What an extraordinary indictment of the superior judiciary by a sitting judge of the High Court! So it is time to overhaul the judiciary as well. Most High Court judges were appointed by the martial law regime of General Zia ul Haq. Most were small-time lawyers or government executive officers before they were ‘elevated’ to the High Courts. What we need on the benches are lawyers with solid professional credentials and impeccable apolitical reputations who have not been tainted with political wheeling dealing or favouritism. It is time to cut the umbilical chord with a distasteful and dictatorial past regime. Justice Samdani, who refused to take oath under the martial law regime, should surely know what’s what and who’s who. Come on, Samdani saab, let’s get your Commission cracking! There is much hiring and firing to be done and not a moment to spare.
Most Pakistanis think Mr Moeen Qureshi is “too good to be true”. Certainly, no one expected Mr Qureshi to take the sort of radical initiatives he has already launched. But having embarked upon a “clean-up”, he cannot stop midway. He has whetted our appetite and we will not forgive him if he lets us down now.