Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Munir Hafiez played one of the most significant roles in the Pakistani government over the last four years. As Chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Gen. Hafiez was perhaps the most visible player in Pakistan's fight against corruption.

The Saturday Post met with Gen. Hafiez in Lahore, shortly after he completed his term at NAB, for an exclusive interview on his views on NAB's accomplishments in his tenure, challenges faced by institutions like NAB, and the general state of the union as far as corruption is concerned.

Gen. Hafiez, whose reputation as a straightforward, honest, respectable man preceded him, had a lot of very interesting, poignant, and factual insights to share with us. We hope you enjoy reading his interview.

(Editor's Note: Since our interview with Gen. Hafiez, he has assumed the post of Chief Executive and Managing Director for the Fauji Fertilizer Company Ltd.)

NAB was formed in 1999 after General Musharraf took office, with the mandate to recover the looted wealth of Pakistan and to aid in checking corruption. Earlier in the life of the NAB, there were challenges to the Presidential Ordinance which led to some delays in the operational ramp-up. But in 2001 the Supreme Court validated the Presidential Ordinance which was the basis for forming the NAB. At that time, I was in Bahawalpur, serving as a 3-star General, when I was asked to take over the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). I was given a notice of about five days to come and take over the Bureau from General Khalid Maqbool, who is now the Governor of Punjab. I was the 3rd incumbent. The previous two, also uniformed military officers, stayed for a year each. Why they were changed, I do not know, but they were changed. NAB's chairman has a four-year, non-extendable term according to law, which I completed just recently.

I tried my best to not take charge [laughs] because everyone knows that this is a position in which you don’t make many friends; you ruffle feathers and step on toes. But General Musharraf wanted me to take over and like a good soldier, I said “Labbaik” and took charge.

Anti-corruption is not a new movement, for us or any other country in the world. We’ve been trying to work on it since 1947. The seeds were sown with the way evacuee property was handled right after partition. But General Musharraf has been very serious about it. In addition to economic growth and provincial harmony, a key point in his 7-point agenda was to bring in a government which would fight corruption and recover the looted wealth of Pakistan. The establishment of NAB was a critical step in this direction. I'll tell you that even I did not come in with a clear image of the organization. One thought that it would also be affected by the pushes and pulls that are a part of our society. To my pleasant surprise it wasn’t like that. They were on track and the main challenge was to ensure that the institution must stay intact and grow. And I have to say that whatever success we’ve had is because of the personal support of the President and having a man in uniform in charge of the Bureau.

The most important thing for me was to institutionalize NAB. I wanted to create a long-lasting institution with a focus on capacity building, training, and effective procedures. I started the ISO-9000 certification for the Bureau. We thought we must be transparent, open, approachable, and correct.

Also, I did not want to do the easiest thing, which was to arrest anyone I wanted. With the backing of the law, we could get a remand for 15-days at a time for a total of 90 days for anyone who was suspected of corruption or corrupt practices. But I told my people to tell me why “not” to arrest someone instead of why we “should” arrest someone. There are a hundred names that you can go after but that isn’t how things should work. I wanted complete defensibility and substantiation for any arrests we made. In this vein, I wanted to focus on building standard operating procedures that would enable us to process complaints and file cases after justifying the cause as thoroughly as possible.

I thought that balance must prevail – people should be scared of us but not run away from us and stop functioning. This law is like a stick. We keep it behind our back and don’t use it until we really have to and then we use it really well. We have the counsel of Chartered Accountants, Bankers, IT, Lawyers, all experts in their own fields. We are second to none internationally in our investigations. Granted that abroad you have data and all, which is why it is easier to investigate; but we are working with those handicaps and it was my goal to institutionalize processes that would minimize the effect of these handicaps. NAB now is wholly automated. We have 5 regional NABs (Rawalpindi plus the four provinces). We share data and conduct video conferences to quickly meet and decide on issues that are relevant to a complaint or case. There is no delay in people getting a consensus.

Of the important initiatives, the first one would be the development of a National Anti-Corruption Strategy, formulated with assistance from the Department For International Development (DFID) of UK which provides funds and expertise to developing countries. Using a group of young bright Pakistanis from the government, we formulated the National Anti-Corruption Strategy of Pakistan. First we found out the causes. We formally interviewed about 10,000 people – including people from the slums to the highest levels of government. Our strategy is based on three aspects: Awareness, Prevention, and Enforcement. We got a time bound plan to implement the strategy. The federal cabinet has approved that document and everybody in Pakistan is reading it. I had to ensure that it doesn’t go off track. Unfortunately the time bound plan is very slow. People hit the roof every time you want to do something. Unless the whole lot is on board, and good governance is insured, things will be slow.

Second, in our country, we had so many anti-corruption laws and agencies (NAB, FIA), whereas the global best practices suggest that there should be one agency, one law. In our case FIA had a 7-year punishment for the same crime for which we had a 14-year punishment. So we said call it any organization but have one law. When I made a presentation, I said don’t give the highest authority to NAB, give it to anyone – but have only one. So far this integration is at the federal level; once we have overcome capacity issues at the provincial levels, we can filter down the integration to that level also.

Finally, we made decisions with consensus. I encouraged people to give their points of view for and against. and then we decided what to do. Nobody can fault NAB for making a case contrary to the popular belief. I have to be fair to the President and the three Prime Ministers I worked with. None of them put me in a spot where I was embarrassed, or had to do something I didn’t want to do. It didn’t happen that way. I had a conscience of my own and my country before me.

The biggest challenge was training. How do you enable people to investigate and manage cases in an effective, efficient, and defensible manner? This was a challenge. As such, I invested a lot in training. But we had to work with the lack of managerial and investigative resources in Pakistan. We had to assess their level of education, training, and IQ etc. compared to the so-called advanced world which has the advantages of education and technology. We need 7000 people countrywide. The governance is at the district level and eventually we have to be at that level. So human resources will continue to be a challenge and hopefully we can overcome it in the next few years with continued training and skills development.

In the prevention mode, NAB alone neither has the capacity nor the desire to correct anyone. All departments should do it themselves. It should go to NAB only when departments have failed to correct it. People have to understand that NAB is doing its job. It’s slow but effective. My job is not to create chaos by arresting dozens of people. I can’t impact the economy or the political machinery by creating chaos. If you uncover a banking fraud for example, you have to correct things behind the scenes first, so if you can avoid making it public, then you do , and avoid public panic.

You also have to give people the chance to present their points of view. I was never shy of reversing a process if we made a mistake. We take long in investigation. I used to give the example of a Norwegian, Eva Jolly. She took five years to complete an investigation but then got quite a few members of parliament involved. In our case also, we have to work with the person’s availability, our own capacity, the pushes and pulls of our culture, and the lack of automation.

Pakistan’s money had been looted by people – bank defaults, cooperative scams, employee old age benefits schemes – even though per se the law is meant to proceed against public servants, not private sector. But obviously a government servant cannot pull off these scams by themselves. There has to be someone to aid and abet. We went on the task of recovering this money, and I’m proud to say we recovered over PKR 200 billion. Apart from that, we recovered money from abroad also, which is a pittance perhaps, to the tune of USD 10 million or so. But we have started and we have our arms stretched out to curb corruption also. We have already returned over 8 billion Pak rupees to the people of Pakistan. In employee old age benefits we have given over a billion rupees to the department to pay to the employees.

We arrested everybody and anybody from top to bottom, including both men and women. People hit the roof when we arrested women, but I said if women are engaged in this process then they have to pay the price. We brought to light a scam of pensioners from Peshawar. Ghost pensioners were drawing pensions on account of military personnel long dead. We interacted with Election Commission of Pakistan and the Education Dept. We also introduced an asset proforma for all government officers.

The institution has moved forward itself, as well as improved the working of the government. The public servant knows there is an organization. We have links with international anti-corruption agencies for information and training. This is not a military institution. The law now says the NAB Chairman will either be a retired judge, retired 3-star from armed forces, or retired civil servant. I was the last incumbent in uniform.

Enforcement alone is not the answer. We have to educate people. We have to ensure that the government or whoever is involved has to provide for the people. Until you do that you can’t really hold them accountable. The welfare state in Islam says that you can’t just chop off someone’s hand unless you provide for that person. Enforcement alone will not be the answer. Also, unless all the pillars are strong, you can’t really do anything. The pillars on which the national integrity depends are legislature, judiciary, media, private sector, civil society, anti-corruption agencies, and public accountability bodies. If these pillars are weak, you can’t function. This alludes to good governance. Unless every segment of the functional part of the machinery is working, you can’t really get results. There were people in the accountability bureau who went wrong. We aren’t angels. But we had a vigilance system and we caught them and punished them. So if we can do it within our department, why can’t other departments do it? A good governance system is very important and we are trying to educate the stakeholders. Eventually they have to take ownership themselves.

Pakistan is not what it used to be. There are good things happening and we want to be proud of that. But a lot more has to be done and the governance issue is foremost. Political parties need to have ethics and systems within. The parties should not give tickets and government offices to people who already have cases against them. It cannot happen overnight. This effort has to sustain. We must continue with this organization, make it as independent as we possibly can, and support it. We haven’t ever arrested anyone for making bad decisions. But if you’ve been repeatedly failing and causing a loss to the public exchequer, then you have to be held accountable.

We held a cabinet retreat, where for the entire day the Cabinet Ministers sat down to discuss the problems and how to overcome them. We had four syndicates – three Pakistanis and three foreigners with each syndicate. In the beginning they were very hostile. But at the end of the day they wanted one every month. They made pledges of what they would do. The PM formed a committee and NAB will provide the secretariat for that. It’s a major step for our country.

If you look at where we were 10-20 years ago and where we are today, we are in a much better place. People give examples of India and other countries; I’ve seen other countries! Pakistanis are boy scouts in front of the corrupt politicians in other countries. I’m not defending them. I’m saying that we have to focus on and analyze our own governance, education, good management, and good fiscal and economic systems.

We see projects coming up, foreign exchange reserves are growing. There are two sides to a coin. The same people can read both sides. But the plus points are increasing. There’s no need for despondency. We should be proud of the country and what we are doing. You are where you are in the world because of what you got in Pakistan. Why are they so good when they are outside of Pakistan? It’s because of the leadership and environment. I would put the responsibility squarely on the political leadership of the country. I look at my own department and am proud of what I did to develop the institution; I'd like to see other departments do the same.

People say “paanch saal ho gaye, NAB nay corruption khatam nahi kee” (it's been five years but NAB hasn't eliminated corruption). It will take a generation! You have to educate people, provide for them, and then you can talk about accountability. A policeman who has to take care of his children, healthcare, food, housing and all that, has to fend for himself. How can you fault him unless you are providing for him to start off with? We’ve convicted over 1500-1600 people and investigated over twice as many. We had 70,000 complaints. People told us we were selective. Of course we were! Seventy thousand is a lot of complaints. With 2000 people, of which about 250 are investigative officers, at best you have 800-1000 people at the core doing the case management. We will do what is right and we will do it right. We will not rush through things. We’ve taken not one but 15-20 steps of a 1000 mile journey.

Another oft repeated issue is plea bargaining. People say that “muk-mukaa kar liya” and the person is back in town going about his business.

But plea bargaining is nothing new. Even in ancient civilizations, or blood money in Islam, we see this all across history. In the US, plea bargains are rampant. Here the mandate was to recover the money. Don’t look at plea bargaining as recovery of money, because it is an admission of guilt. The court administers the whole thing. If it’s a government servant he loses his job and pension. A politician cannot contest for 10 years for public office. But if a person wants to correct himself/herself by paying back, then why not? Reformation is not a bad thing. Even God permits that.

NAB pays for itself. We have used the money we took for our employees’ welfare. People doing this kind of work - a 24/7/365 job which is also dangerous - have to be paid well. You can never pay as much as the crooks do but if you are reasonably well paid at least you can hope to avoid getting into the kind of temptations that result in corruption. We get our share of the recovered wealth, but we are discriminating when it comes to using this share. When 6-7 billion rupees were recovered from plea bargains for bank loan returns, 20% came to NAB and we took it. But when it came to money for the people, like old age and pensions, NAB never took any share. We forewent over Rs.4 billion.

It's indifference – not acceptance. Our police and judiciary have to be paid more, ten times more if necessary. Because the dispensation of justice at the local levels is weak because of the corruption at that level or the lack of interest in dispensing justice. 80% of our problems lie in social justice for the poor, average Pakistani. If we can provide justice to the common people, then our problems will decrease.

Evacuee property – the seeds were sown from day one. Why blame today’s generation? Work ethics and professionalism have to increase. Country must come first, before anything else. There’s no harm in making money. By all means do so. The civilized world and even Islam doesn’t tell us not to make money. When people tell me a person who used to come on a bike and now has cars and a house, why not? Anyone can make money and if it’s kosher, it’s great. We are not against people who are making money or against people making wrong decisions. But we are against people who are making money illicitly and making wrong decisions repeatedly without any repercussions professionally or personally.

Yes, I think so. Things are changing. More people are saying that they can get their work done without paying a penny. At the highest levels, we feel that the corruption has decreased. Intellectual property rights for the foreigners, recourse through legal system for quick and speedy justice, those things are happening. In fact, I’m in a business myself and so far things are okay. If people don’t venture forward how will they know. People must have told you that you are out of your mind traveling to Pakistan and yet here you are. India is next door, relationships are improving. Yes, there are bureaucratic problems, I agree with you, but they are reducing every day. There will be a few hiccups but that goes without saying. The culture here doesn’t exist abroad and the culture there doesn’t exist here. People going from here to the US are also surprised by many things. It’s just that things are different…and you can get used to it.

It’s everywhere that you need references and contacts. Even to join West Point you need a reference from your congressman. People being in politics, feudal society, dynastic families, the gap between rich and poor is more, etc. makes it look more like a reference-based society. Where we are today, the US was maybe a hundred years ago. Hernando Desoto from Peru talks about this. In a developing country you have to go through 37 offices which takes a 1000 days. In the fifth office on the 65th day, you say the hell with it and pay some money to get things done. In today’s world we need to get out of it faster today than Wells Fargo did. But it requires leadership like it took the US after Depression to get out of it. If the private sector brings in more capacity for more experienced people, then people who have worked abroad will find opportunities here. Some people will go back but those who stay will not regret it.

The government in the higher education sector is encouraging PhD’s to come back. Many have, and many more have signed up. This shows that there is an interest. It won’t be the same as the West. But you have to consider you are not doing it for yourself but for the future generations. Most Pakistanis in senior positions in the west were mostly educated in Pakistan. Now their kids have been educated abroad but they themselves are very Pakistani. They’ve made tons of money there and good luck to them, why not, but now they can bring in part of that and return something to their country. If people can learn something from them here, then things will improve. Some of our people when they come back expect that it will be the same as it was there. Islamabad cannot be like Washington. There are many strengths of our culture that you have to be proud of like some good things there. So you have to mix and match the strengths.

I'm the patron of a charity organization known as Zindagi Trust which is registered in Pakistan, US, and UK. One of our young pop singers, Shehzad Roy, came up with this idea and asked me to join him. I did it when I was in uniform, with the President’s permission. I’m very involved – more than a patron ought to be – for anything and everything. We have several projects. One key project is “I’m paid to learn” – three and a half hours primary education for payment of 20 rupees a day. If they are studying and producing results, they get paid. We now have 38 schools. Another key program is Female Literacy and Mother-and-Childcare Center. We are starting in that. We raise funds through cultural events. We did four concerts in Dallas, Houston, Chicago, and Toronto last year. We are going again in May. Recently we organized a fundraiser concert with Bryan Adams in Karachi.