The corruption culture

The Supreme Court has taken up the cudgels against corruption, in which the ordinary citizen has given full support, but as it has gone to specific cases, the Supreme Court has found that there is an entire culture of corruption that has to be uprooted, a culture which makes sure that all get a share, provided they cooperate. The Court’s experience was encapsulated by the Supreme Court judge who remarked on Monday in the course of the National Insurance Company Limited scam, that it seemed that ‘thieves were investigating thieves’, The inadequacy of investigation is something with which the Supreme Court is only too familiar, and has even pointed at the reason, by the commitment, expressed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, that the “culture of letting go the influential persons must end.” This is the heart of the culture of corruption, to the extent that the ability to get away with wrongdoing is one of the measures of importance in itself. With ‘understanding’ being shown by investigating authorities, corruption becomes that much easier. That impunity resulted in the transfer of the officer investigating the case away from it, until the Supreme Court began asking awkward questions from the Interior Ministry. Another attempt to exercise that impunity was visible in the Haj scam, which led to the dismissal of Religious Affairs Minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi, whose foreign currency accounts were sealed by the FIA in Multan at the same time as the Haj Mission in Saudi Arabia had its account, containing 50 million riyals for onward transmission to pilgrims, was not withdrawn in time – Nation