Confronting corruption

Monday, July 30, 2012 - Many simple and straightforward people with country including Sindh are being ravaged by pervasive corruption. It is time for citizens and civil society organizations to take a proactive stand in combating and exposing corruption. Policies and procedures to combat and curb corruption are very necessary, but what is needed now more than ever before, is for organizations and individuals to put into action practical tools and solutions that make goals to end corruption, achievable.

Corruption exists everywhere and in many different forms in Sindh province but its revenue department has earned notoriety in corruption and that also in the organized corruption. The most simple daily-routine administrative tasks cannot be performed without a bribe to the revenue official in charge of the paperwork.

Indeed, corruption and bribes suck a significant share of the Poor’s income. So there’s no doubt poverty and corruption are linked. Anti-corruption laws exist, supported by several agencies and yet… failure has been the common point of these efforts. The agencies lack independence and power; of course it’d be dangerous to create a tool that actually works and risks putting its own creators in jail.

Not only does corruption worsen poverty, it also drags the whole province’s development down by stealing its resources.

Besides, information technology, which can help to fight corruption, a clearer and more defined anti-corruption structure will be needed if we are to have any hope of achieving the lofty goal of corruption free society especially, the revenue department.. Furthermore, strict action may also be taken against those revenue officers who become billionaires by corrupt practices cheating, both, the state and the people.

—Islamabad