Mian, the Bijli Chor
Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif: the Muhammad Shah Rangeela of corruption in Pakistan
Squeaky clean?
Editorial
PML-N president Nawaz Sharif made his usual high-flown remarks at a public rally for NA-123, an electoral hotbed for the impending by-election on March 10. What made his declarations stand out this time, however, were the apparent contradictions that floated on the surface of the PML-N president’s assertions. With the Punjab government threatening retribution for power theft, to see their own rally being lit up by illegal electricity connections blatantly shows that no officeholder is innocent of knavish practices. Rana Sanaullah’s rejection of the PML-N’s responsibility, and pinning the blame on the lights and sound organising company, simply ducks the issue. When seen in this ‘light’, most of the rally speech reeks of wry irony.
Mian sahib’s aversion to looking in the mirror is not befitting in this day and age of a relatively free media and a more aware public because of it. Vowing to bring back ‘looted’ money from Swiss bank accounts is all well and good if you have set a benchmark to claim the moral high ground. Accusations have always been rife about Nawaz Sharif’s own shady methods of entrepreneurial conduct: alleged money laundering under the cover of the Hudaibiya Paper Mills back in 1998, extracting loans from the public exchequer to establish his own personal empire of mills, factories and foundries according to the Auditor General’s report in 1988, and tipping off friends and associates about the foreign currency accounts freeze after the nuclear explosions in 1998, allowing many millions to be diverted from Pakistan to rosier international pastures.
One does agree with Mr Sharif on his stand against army takeovers and the defeat of turncoats but, once again, what is sauce for the goose must also be sauce for the gander. The Islamic Democratic Alliance (IDA) was synthesised by the military in the wake of General Ziaul Haq’s death as the new Muslim League, a party of which Nawaz Sharif was very much a central figure. Given power in the Punjab in 1988, Mr Sharif had no qualms in offering the army overseeing power without governing responsibilities. Relying on the military for political backing must have seemed peachy when required, but many a harsh lesson had to be learnt in the loneliness of forced exile after the ousting of the PML-N government by General Musharraf in 1999.
Claiming to honour the Charter of Democracy (CoD) by willing to reach a common ground with the federal government is commendable as, much to the chagrin of most objective observers, the president and his cohorts have made a few bloopers; the judicial standoff being a case in point where the views of a few spin doctors were taken as legitimate advice. However, Mr Sharif has never really toned down his show of aggression whenever an excuse such as this has presented itself to his advantage. Democracy allows for criticism, but it is usually advisable to avoid aggressive opportunism.
Allowing the democratically elected system to follow its own course, no matter how flawed it may seem, is advice that should be adhered to. That does not preclude criticism of the incumbents, but a little sobriety in publicly demonising the established government would serve all the political forces well by establishing civilised norms of democratic discourse.
Monday’s rally has brazenly ‘lit up’ some of the more glaring hypocrisies of PML-N’s stance. Perhaps Mr Sharif has not heard of the popular Biblical adage: ‘Let he who is free of sin, cast the first stone.’
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What would you expect from a person who have always cheated in the simple game of cricket in his younger days. he use to hire his own empires to alter the result of the match. Same he is doing in Politics. These Sharif brothers are a curse on pakistan. What a contrast there we have people like Z.A. Bhutto and Benazir who laid down there lives for the country, here we have a leader whole steal electricity for some stupid political gathering, shame on us.
Dear Amjad
You are spot on. In fact, I have known the Sharifs since their childhood. They were cheaters. Their father, in Mohni Road, was associated with charas sellers and extractors of jagga tax.
TOWERS OF ENLIGHTENMENT ……‘with stolen electricity’, I better say.
Electricity stealing is a norm and as stated earlier in a comment above that our Mulla community is far ahead of these political hoodlums. They use the stolen electricity in their so called ‘ religious festivities and on specially on ‘ Milads ‘ ’ under the license of religion. Power stealing is a cancer and is spreading. As per survey, 30% of our generated electricity is being stolen, out of which almost 18% is being stolen by Industries, small and large, one way or another. Pakistan has the electricity generating capacity around 20000 MW and almost 6000MW goes out unpaid. These were the figures of NEPRA and WAPDA in 2007 ~ 2008. World bank issued a warning to Pakistan few years back to enhance the power generation capacity up to 24000 MW till mid 2010 to keep an equilibrium between development and production otherwise the wheel of development is bound to take a reverse turn. Worse is yet to come, very very shortly.
COMMON STEALING TO COMPLEX CRIMES AND BACK TO COMMON STEALING WITH COMPLEX CRIMES… some journey.
The self confidence of a thief increases with the support he gets from the public with drained out brains and silence of the lamb (The Public), knowingly and willfully. From importing scraps / raw materials under government’s legal cover by issuing particular industry specific SROs from the ministry directly, to the historic voyage of stealing electricity shows a pattern of huge fearlessness leading to their own political suicide.
Money laundering is also far more complex but nothing is hidden now and discussed many times all over. Putting a lid on the Pandora’s box and by just saying that a decade of imprisonment or exile has acted as an ablution or acquittal, wont help any more.
When bigwigs conduct crime and big money or interests are involved, procedure must follow very complex technical path and lately falls under the category of ORGANIZED CRIME. Organized crime is considered as the most sophisticated actions performed that leaves no trail of getting caught, even hard to detect and only the suspicion can’t hold any one accountable. They keep on getting the respect and sympathy cover under the clause of ‘doubts or false allegations until proven guilty’.
Under current circumstances, the corruption ‘allegations’ on all parties can be termed as acts of organized crimes, to track them down is a very lengthy, hectic and costly task, as experienced in last decades by NAB, when billions of rupees were spent and nothing concrete was proven yet and we are again planning to give every body the benefit of doubt to ride on our back.
Back to square one.
Financial Organized crimes can not be done alone, but need a legion of accomplices, cronies, trusted fellow ministers and like minded willing bureaucracy. Really costly, experienced lawyers as legal and financial consultants are hired. Firms or their hired consultants are also responsible for filing the politician’s wealth tax and income tax returns and ……walla…. we see every day, that by magic, Mr. A has got the worth of only few Million rupees rather poor soul is indebted to his son, Mr. B has only a small bunch of some million wealth with a huge multibillion dollar palace in possession, Mr. C has got a small handful where as he travels in a Mercedes and spends million in processions. More fun is seen when every crony of each above maintains an absolute denial on media as to the acts of theirs or their leadership.
There is one crime, we also are involved in. Becoming accomplice of all above ‘dear leaders’ and keep favoring them and repeatedly bringing them back by votes, knowingly and willfully. Just by using some very typical words, PRO and ANTI, we quench our thirsts for that day. Either we have no choice or we are much blinded by the SICK FAVORITISM , RACISM, REGIONALISM, ABSOLUTE DENIAL TO HEAR ANY THING CONTRARY TO OUR ABOVE ADAMANT BELIEFS, ROCK HARD EGOS or may be for some clandestine interests that we had or have, yet again. They will vehemently keep on masquerading behind their saga of long sacrifices in front of us and this is how they will survive. Surely we are not that MOMIN who can not be bitten twice from the same hole, oh yes we can be bitten as many times as we like as long as we have the capacity to create a society as above, So be it.
Nawaz Sharif’s son, Hasan, is Europe’s richest real estate tycoon. Where did he get the money? Hasan has never worked even one hour in his life. His father stole money from Pakistan’s exchequer.
Yes, that is the real information that is needed to be spread to depict the real faces behind the current masquerading ball in progress.
The SRO scandals, importing raw materials and scraps, with sole exemption of duty and taxes to his particular industry, must not be ignored and must be thououghly verified by our judiciary through which Nawaz industrial empire earned billions of rupees
who will do that? The Chief Justice?
It is very regretful and painful fact that a political party which blames government of misgoverning is once again caught in illegal activity. Nawaz Sharif who wistfully tells issues of people on media is unable to look after his own party workers. This is shameful for a political party that at the time is scoring political points by raising power issues is stealing electricity on live television. I am feeling the pain, are you feeling the same? How can we get rid of these fools, third raters, frauds, and thugs – No we can’t – because this is the family party that is the party which is supposedly going to run Pakistan in future. If we look overall situation of Punjab province, it is getting worse and worse. Punjab Police is acting like Taliban. It was hard to see Punjab police whipping boys in front of people that reminded me of Taliban brutality when they flogged a girl.
Anita, you are on spot. PML-N through Zia has been able to criminalize the entire society. Now the police are the new Taliban.
Thank you for taking a few minutes to write this particular information.