Investigating in dark alleys —Hassan Iftikhar

Sometimes, investigative journalism in Pakistan remains merely a case of whole-scale copying of files handed out by aggrieved bureaucrats whose only bone of contention lies in being on the losing end of the commission dispute

We journalists are a funny breed these days; we demand western standards of accountability and governance from our elected leaders but, as institutions, fail to follow the same standards ourselves. Let us investigate!

Our investigative journalists regularly name and shame our elected leaders, yet they refuse to question the ways the executive functions in this country. Since official ministerial communication is carried out by the concerned secretary, no corruption can take place without the abatement of the bureaucracy. Sometimes, investigative journalism in Pakistan remains merely a case of whole-scale copying of files handed out by aggrieved bureaucrats whose only bone of contention lies in being on the losing end of the commission dispute.

We have consistently failed to unearth evidence for or reasons of national tragedies such as the murder of our first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan to the martyrdom of Benazir Bhutto. There are still hundreds of important events whose actual circumstances and reasons we are still unaware of, even though the significance of that information remains as important now as it was back when the events occurred.

We have used our right to access of information to only unearth the corruption of our elected representatives and have consistently failed to question why the civilian and military bureaucracy refuses to follow the rules and regulations made for them at every level, yet cannot be brought to accountability by the elected representatives.

We refuse to highlight how the bureaucracy has strived to ensure, through their rules of business, that their performance can never be actually debated by the people with whom the blame of failure of governance is actually laid. We do not see too many reports in newspapers on how the civilian bureaucracy has closed all avenues of questioning their performance in the Senate, National Assembly and the provincial assemblies of Pakistan.

We have never highlighted the helplessness of the elected representatives in our reports where even a very small question regarding the non-availability of clean drinking water in some far flung village or a motion seeking the arrest of a criminal in a brutal rape is turned down because the rules laid down do not allow us to.

We are obsessed with the corruption and ineffectiveness of our elected representatives in such a great way that when these ‘devils’ are sent home by some ‘angel’, no such story of corruption ever makes it to the front pages of a newspaper. There are times when one feels that this attitude of journalists should be investigated in itself for it usually seems a part of the great game to defame politicians.

Pakistan has been gifted in every way. It has been bestowed by great deep sea-ports, huge gold and copper mines and one of the largest resources of coal but there is no real or so-called investigation as to why the concerned departments of the concerned ministers were unable to develop any of these mega projects in the last five decades or so. Considering civil bureaucracy along with the military establishment of the country is the only assured reality in Pakistan. When the real policy making is done at the secretarial level, then why is no one asking questions from those responsible for the development of these projects?

Why is there no report on why the gold and copper mines of Reko Diq were sold for peanuts to foreign investors? I refuse to believe that there is any document in this country that is not drafted by the concerned bureaucratic division, so why were no questions raised by any of the bureaucrats when such a national asset was being sold off?

And in our effort to justify these lashings on the politicians, we rarely release some stories about the corruption of the armed services and the civil bureaucracy; these news stories are usually footnotes when compared to our unhealthy obsession with politicians.

There is never a serious investigative report that can help us analyse the costs and benefits of our bloated executive branch, which is paid for by the poor people of the country. These people are supposed to be responsible for making the system work and receive years of luxury for their services, yet there is no real obsession with truth when it comes to bureaucrats. And such an investigation may never occur because the file will never be made to be leaked to a journalist.

In the end, I will always await for an investigative report that outlines the exact reasons behind why the number of green plantations has not increased in the last 60 years in Pakistan when there were federal, provincial and local departments for this. Maybe our expert investigative journalists may want to consider an investigation into this; as an incentive I may suggest that there be made the possibility that Asif Ali Zardari, the current president, has something to do with it — he was after all once the minister for environment.

The writer is a broadcast journalist, currently specialising in investigative journalism. He can be reached at [email protected]

Source: Daily Times, 3 Nov 2010

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