Singapore; a tiny city-state devoid of natural resources yet a leading developed country has the distinction of being among the top three least corrupt states. It is an ideal example of a nation that liberated itself from the shackles of corruption with sheer strength of their determination in devising and implementing anti-corruption policies.

In the ’60s, at the time of its formation, the island-state infected with corruption, presented a weary state with administrative machinery taking for granted the ‘right’ of palm greasing. However, things were not meant to be that way for long. With Lee Kaun Yew taking over the helm of the newly-born country, at the behest of People’s Action Party (PAP), as its first Premier, a completely new concept of ‘macho-meritocracy’ was introduced.

This fundamental strategy pertaining to both morality and public-sector policy execution was implemented on all and sundry. The basic idea behind this initiative was to eradicate corruption, while promoting merit-based selection. It is the outcome of this particular policy that today, corruption in Singapore is regarded as a ‘high risk, low reward’ activity.

On the public front, CPIB (Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau) — a statutory board already in existence since 1952 — was empowered by Prevention of Corruption Act (POCA) of 1960; giving it sweeping power, accountable to the Prime Minister alone.

Tasked with the theme of making corruption socially unacceptable, CPIB has the prerogative to investigate anyone, be it in the public or private sector, without a necessitated approval of the incumbent government. In case of a clash of interest arising with the PM, as and when reported by the CPIB chief, the overseeing authority by law transfers to the Head of State, which in this case would be the President.

With the investigation of Financial Embezzlement and Corrupt practices under its purview; the track record of investigations conducted by the CPIB have proven it to be a ‘blind-eyed agency’, with many power brokers including sitting ministers among those who had to face the music.

CPIB receives on average 1000 complaints per annum of which 300 get to the investigation stage and approximately 150 being put before the judiciary for trial. It has an outstanding conviction rate of 95 per cent! 

An effective pre-emptive anti-corruption measure adopted as a principle by the government of Singapore is ‘Punishment for the greedy, incentive for the needy’, for it is either or both which compel one towards corruption. 

Adequate salaries at par with the private sector, are being offered to government employees; along with an efficient administrative system with time bound productivity, so as to curb bribery for getting a task done within the prescribed time limit. This measure eventually resulted into eradication of economic disparity and a socially just system.

In a unique effort of keeping government servants away from corrupt practices, borrowing by public servants and law enforcement agency personnel is capped at thrice their monthly salaries, for greater loans may lead to financial woes and ultimately to an inclination of an ‘external’ solution to the issue. Also the officials are supposed to declare their assets on once every four months, by law.

Special Anti-Corruption laws have been drafted and put in place, clearly laying the ground work of what and what may not be called as corrupt practice. The laws so drafted afford ‘No mercy to the corrupt’ by keeping in place punishment ranging from imprisonment to immediate dismissal from service, fines to restriction on holding of any office in public or private sector which involves dealing with general public. Under these laws, trial and conviction of a Singaporean involved in corrupt practices anywhere in the world can be initiated in Singapore without a request from the aggrieved party(ies).

Due to effective public policies, Singapore has more than 8,000 multinationals. On the economic front, the sustainable implementation of the concept of macho-meritocracy has yielded into net foreign reserves worth 174 billion USD for the Singaporean state along with a GDP per capita of over 50,000 USD in just over 45 years’ time.

Infrastructure projects linked to the Games, including flyovers and metro rail network extensions, are badly lagging. And, with the monsoon expected to arrive in June and July, preparations could be blown further off course.

Outside the Commonwealth Games office, the countdown clock is ticking down to the Oct 3 start of an event that India hopes will showcase its ability to organise major sports events and put it on course to host an Olympics.

Instead, it risks a debacle, with nervousness growing as deadlines slip repeatedly, particularly for the main Jawaharlal Nehru stadium and the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee swimming complex.

“The deadlines are being pushed further every time,” Mike Hooper, chief executive of the London-based Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF), which owns and controls the Games, told AFP in an interview.

“In October last year we were told most of the venues will be ready by December, except the Jawaharlal Nehru and swimming stadiums which they said would be ready by March. Now that deadline has shifted to June.

“We struggle to understand that. If the venue construction programme does not adhere to what are self-imposed deadlines now, it will impact adversely the operational obligations.” He and others involved in the organisation stress that building the venues is one thing: testing and getting them ready to host thousands of athletes and spectators is another.

“We need to test their operational readiness at least two months before the start of the Games,” Hooper said.

Hooper’s concerns were echoed by CGF president Michael Fennell, who took a first-hand look at all the venues last week and went away a worried man.

“There remains quite a high level of concern about some of the venues being completed in time so that proper test events can be held,” he told reporters in New Delhi.

“There is a lot of work still to be done. We still have areas of concern and we have discussed these openly and frankly with the organising committee.” The Indian organisers have been maintaining their line that everything will be ready in time.

Games Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi has compared the process to an Indian wedding in which everything looks disorganised from the outside but comes together at the last minute.

“There is no need to push the panic button,” he was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India news agency.

“We are going to have the best-ever Commonwealth Games. I would like to assure the entire country that all pending work will be completed within the deadlines.

“The Delhi Games would be better than Melbourne and Manchester. We will show the world what we are capable of.” A sports ministry official coordinating with various Games’ committees scoffed at Kalmadi’s tall claims.

“Kalmadi does not know what he is talking about,” he said, requesting not to be named.

“The Games were awarded to us way back in 2003. If only the officials had planned in a better way, things would not have come to a head.

“But they have been spending all of their energies in ego clashes with one another,” he said, referring to Kalmadi’s ugly spat with Hooper in public last year.

Kalmadi had objected to Hooper’s continued presence in New Delhi, saying he was of “no use” to the organising committee. The outburst prompted Sports Minister Manohar Singh Gill to broker a truce in London.

Both Kalmadi and Hooper claim they have “moved on” since that slanging match.

“Kalmadi now refers to me as his good friend,” laughed Hooper. “We have said let’s focus on the issues and make sure everything is done in a timely manner. “After all, all of us want the same outcome — to have a great Games!” One foreign contractor working on the stadiums, who asked not to be named, is in no doubt that preparations are heading for a dramatic conclusion.

“It really is going to go down to the wire,” he told AFP.

The public confirmation of something that had become apparent to industry insiders over the last year is a shocking indictment, not only of the behaviour of fabulously paid top bank executives but also of the financial regulatory system … and of US legislation enacted following the 2001 Enron scandal to stop such massive cooking of the books from ever taking place again.

…Lehman used accounting sleight of hand to conceal no less than $50bn of bad debt. …Walking away from a rescue was, therefore, one of the few things George W. Bush did right. — (March 12)

They wanted to show their joy and hope, they said, at what they perceived to be a new era of peace in the Swat valley. Little did they know that the very spot where we began the march would witness another deadly suicide attack a week later.

Our group, led by TV artist and social worker Atiqa Odho, was under the protection of the army unit in charge of Swat’s ‘clean-up’ operation. Responding to my question of why the army had a problematic role and image in the war on terror, the commanding officer said, “The army is doing the bidding of the federal government. We have worked hard and sacrificed much in order to recapture this area from the dreaded TTP; we have rebuilt many schools, clinics and homes destroyed by the extremists and you can see … that we are regarded as saviours by the Swati people.” Could the army provide a lasting solution to the myriad problems facing the region, such as endemic poverty, the absence of an institutional infrastructure for gainful education, unemployment, etc? No! That was the job of the Pakistani civilian government, as well as the so-called civil society of Pakistan.

Whatever one may think of the army’s role in creating/dismantling these terror outfits, and its interference in Pakistani politics, life did seem to be returning to normal for the Swatis. Now the rest of the citizens as well as foreigners — fearful of visiting this tourism-dependent area — need to be convinced to begin visiting the almost 900 hotels in Swat which have been shut down for the past few years. Business folk, philanthropists, cultural activists need to show the people of Swat that they have not been forgotten. The government needs to be reminded of its duty to deliver good governance to keep the Taliban away.

Despite my scepticism of the army and poor faith in the current civilian leadership, I, along with my newfound friends of the road, felt energised by the jazba of the local women who had come out of their homes and schools for this historic rally in defiance of traditional norms and in the face of potential danger to continue the fight against the forces of darkness.

Back in Islamabad, I prepared for a music concert at a well-known venue in town, singing my own brand of jazz/Indo-Pak classical/folk fusion. This too is part of the cultural jihad that artists can and must wage against the enemies of joy, art and life itself. The same evening, I learned that Ajoka, a leading theatre company, was performing its controversial play Burqavaganza at the PNCA (Pakistan National Council of Arts) auditorium.

Not only did I see the play, which has a hilarious focus on the national — and international — obsession with the burka or hijab, I was also struck by the courage that is needed to contend what appears to have become the extremist threat from within which has led even cultural institutions meant to be the guardians and promoters of free and liberal thought and art to cave to the self-appointed, Taliban-inspired morality police.

These so-called guardians of public — and private — virtue in the guise of supporters of established religious parties, had prevailed upon the PNCA folk to cancel the performance of the play which was being held at the invitation of an NGO as part of International Women’s Day celebrations.

With no reason given to why the play could not be performed, Ajoka’s director decided to go ahead with the performance, and made a bold statement to the audience gathered in the auditorium about the need to resist the fundamentalist lobby not just outside the centres of power, but also, more importantly, from within elected institutions, such as the PNCA. Her opening speech resonated with my thoughts about the urgent need for artistic and cultural activism.

The play uses the veil as a metaphor with reference to the propagation of extremist values which are being stressed by the fundamentalist lobby. Obviously women are bearing the brunt of this Talibanisation as we have seen in Swat and Fata where girls’ schools were — in fact still are — blown up, women lashed and artists beheaded.

Clearly, artists must fight to regain the space of liberal thought in Pakistani society, even if they have to contend with the extremists and face threats and acts of violence as happened with the burning of Ajoka banners outside the auditorium when the play ended.

With the rash of bombings that began in Lahore and revisited Swat, it seemed that the music and theatre lovers who attended Ajoka’s play, as well as my own concert in Islamabad and my play Jihad Against Violence in Karachi recently, were exhibiting courage simply by going out for some enjoyable and thought-provoking entertainment.

The political situation in the country remains tense, and one is constantly reminded that army muscle is a band-aid solution at best. For me, who can come and go at will to the country where I grew up in an era that seems like a figment of my imagination, the only intervention I can make is to chronicle the bold call of activist art. Those who remain steadfast in their adherence to its transformative power, no matter how slow and tangential it may appear at the moment, will one day help shape our destinies for a better world for all.

Indeed, we can draw heart from Ajoka’s rebellious defiance in a situation where the ‘law’ itself becomes a weapon against the freedom of thought and action; this is the power of performance. ¦ The writer is a professor of English at Montclair State University, US.

There is also another angle to be considered: kidnapping for ransom is one of the methods used by the terrorist network to raise funds. The tactic has been used by suspected religious extremists in the abduction cases of Satish Anand, Shaukat Afridi and Aqeel Haji, for example. It is likely that it is similarly being used by criminal and proscribed outfits in other parts of the country. Resolving kidnapping cases must therefore be considered a priority in terms of reducing crime levels as well as dismantling the terrorist

So the monumental task ahead is for the state to reverse a trend that has undermined the finances of the country for over a decade now: a declining tax-toGDP ratio. It is estimated that since the mid-1990s the tax-to-GDP ratio has fallen by nearly a third (currently it hovers around the 10 per cent mark). In the good times, when credit was cheap and plentiful, the tax-to-GDP was not given the importance it deserved. With the necessary structural overhaul of the tax sector ignored for many years, the country’s financial architects are now struggling to figure out how to overhaul the sector in the midst of an economic slump. Predictably, then, there has been resistance to such change now, with many potential taxpayers arguing that their businesses are simply too weak at the moment to suffer an added tax burden. This may or may not be true (nobody likes paying taxes) but for the seventh NFC award to work more revenue will have to be generated from somewhere.

At the same time, the overall impact of the NFC should not be exaggerated: it is not the be-all and end-all of inter-provincial relations. Many other issues remain to be resolved, from the big (watersharing) to the small (demarcation of marine boundaries between Sindh and Balochistan). If the government reactivates the dormant Council of Common Interests and re-energises the lethargic Inter-Provincial Coordination Committee, as demanded by the provinces, many problems besetting the federation can be resolved. The NFC award consensus indicates there exists a willingness to compromise.

WHEN Greg Mortenson’s book Three Cups of Tea was published in 2006, publishers were unsure of its reception. Their fears were unfounded. The book’s story of a failed American mountain climber’s humanitarian project to build schools in the most underprivileged parts of Pakistan’s northern areas resounded with millions.

Three Cups of Tea sold 3.6 million copies in paperback and now has a sequel, aptly titled Stones into Schools, which narrates Mortenson’s ongoing efforts to build schools in the region.

So successful has Mortenson’s narrative proved that free copies of the book are being distributed among lawmakers on Capitol Hill in an effort to direct them toward the ‘right’ focus on Pakistan. Presumably, those behind this effort hope that reading Mortenson’s tale — his friendly collaboration with the villagers in Korphe, his marked lack of condescension whilst confronting obstacles in the path of the construction of schools and his perseverance in bringing education to remote areas — would provide US congressmen with some much-needed perspective on the troubled region.

Such intentions are unquestionably meritorious. No Pakistani could object to the refreshing nature of Mortenson’s story and the courage with which he refuses to be daunted by cultural, religious and linguistic differences compounded by an array of naysayers. Indeed, Pakistanis are grateful for Mortensen’s ability to sidestep the perpetual narrative of the Taliban, terror and the exploding Islamist time bomb that routinely defines discussions about Pakistan, particularly on Capitol Hill.

Yet to consider Mortenson’s story of initiative and resolve as solely a project to redeem Pakistan in the eyes of the West would be an error. Several narratives penned with equal inventiveness and with the deliberate aim of delivering Pakistan from the burden of its reputation have been denied such publicity. Similarly, enterprising NGOs that have built schools in rural Sindh and Punjab have failed to catch the international imagination with the level of intensity garnered by Mortenson’s project.

The explanation for the success of Three Cups of Tea thus lies not simply in its prose or sincerity, but also in the tale of redemption it offers to an American reader. In overcoming all odds, rising after failure and transforming meagre resources into a project that would deliver people from the darkness of illiteracy, Mortenson represents the American hero at his best. When he cannot get others to help him, he carries stones himself: physical hardship does not deter him and obstacles are overcome with sincerity of purpose.

The villagers of Korphe are able to see Greg as a person and vice versa; bonds are built and relationships created that evade political differences and historical contexts. To an American reader, weary of the tarnishing of the American hero as he was dragged through the moral ignominy of Iraq and Afghanistan — wars that delivered neither understanding nor enlightenment — Mortenson’s book is dear deliverance captured in 342 de lightful pages. The author’s humility is a foil against the hubris of the Bush era, his easy smile and ability to overcome barriers with kindness and yet a firmness of purpose a drastic departure from the bombs and drones that define American officialdom. The cowboy of the Wild West, the risk-taking entrepreneur, the buccaneering explorer are all wrapped into one peaceful package in the person of Mortenson, who manages to construct alone what the governments of both the United States and Pakistan wrote off as impossible.

Rediscovering the American hero is one aspect of Mortenson’s appeal. The other, also in great demand in relation to the Pakistan question, is the provision of an easy solution. As is well known to most Pakistanis, America and Americans have only lately woken up to the existence of a world beyond Europe and the former Soviet Union. This recent introduction to Pakistan’s baffling complexities of history, enmities between Islamist groups, ethnic differences and civilian-military relations can prove daunting, not to mention time-consuming, particularly to American lawmakers looking to coin nifty sound bites on the ‘Afpak’ question.

Mortenson’s book provides a welcome antidote, an adventure story with a dashing hero and devoid of the onerous, complicated denouements that are part and parcel of historical and political tomes devoted to explaining Pakistan. Just as compelling is the simplicity of the solution offered by Mortenson’s project: who indeed can argue with the appealing simplicity of building schools as a solution to bringing people out of ignorance and providing an antidote to extremism.

Yet it is this last facet of Mortensen’s book that exposes the danger in elevating it to a panacea for all the ills that plague Pakistan. Simply put, while education is one of Pakistan’s needs and Greg Mortenson’s efforts are laudable, they do not present a thorough investigation into Pakistan’s structural problems and should not be taken as a stand-in for a deeper understanding of the country. In addition, there are Pakistanis such as Abdul Sattar Edhi who do not have Mortenson’s international fame but who have, with even fewer resources, managed to deliver their communities from poverty and build schools or small industries without the intervention of a foreign saviour.

Undoubtedly, Mortenson is under no obligation to include mention of such people in his own narrative. However, it must be recognised that the uncritical acceptance of his story as the story on saving Pakistan suggests that no local heroes have taken the initiative of improving their own nation. For a postcolonial nation, such omissions of agency can be damning in a historical context where the celebrated hero is rarely one of their own.

The point of this essay is not to belittle or critique the incredible courage and sincerity of a man who chose to fulfil a promise made to a forsaken village that had little hope. Instead, the aim is to encourage those westerners that have consumed three cups of tea in their encounter with Pakistan to perhaps partake of a few more. For Pakistanis, particularly Pakistani-Americans, the message is to know that while we may be overjoyed with just a little understanding we can hope for more, and that we must venerate our own little-known heroes just as much as Greg Mortenson. ¦ The writer is a US-based attorney and teaches constitutional law and political philosophy.

The idea is very simple; Telenor just wants Pakistanis to connect with each others’ ideas, at a platform governed by the company. Users can post ideas through SMS, call, Telenor’s website and via postal mail.

Telenor is maintaining the list of all ideas (category wise) contributed by the Pakistanis on its website. Along with it has success stories, inspirational videos and  images. This is not actually a social networking site but the purpose is to get some useful ideas. After wards all the ideas will be discussed and evaluated by a team of Pakistani intellectuals through the nationwide television coverage.

One winning idea will be selected & recognized through the “Telenor Karo Mumkin” show.

You got something interesting? Share it here:

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Or through this page: http://www.telenor.com.pk/karomumkin/?page_id=341

You can send entries before 31st March, 2010

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So don’t wait just think out of the box and submit your idea.