“I HAVE a dream,” President Asif Ali Zardari told the first joint session of parliament, “to free this great country from the shackles of poverty, hunger, terrorism and disunity.” Two years later, it must be his nightmare to see the shackles only fastened tighter.

The culprit is corruption which did not find even a passing mention in his hour-long address. And the “across-the-board transparent accountability” that he promised would replace the “political witch-hunting” of the past is nowhere in sight. Many lawmakers, including ministers, wouldn’t even file a statement of their assets (much less explain how they amassed them) until the election commission suspended their membership.

Even holders of fake degrees — scores of them — were discovered by accident. In a display of bravado, the Oxonian education minister publicly refused to produce his degree for scrutiny. He must have swallowed his pride for he still sits in parliament.

Such is the lot of the legislators with whose help, the president hoped, he would “steer the country out of darkness”. Maybe in the thickening darkness and accompanying hopelessness he goes through his speech once again to ruminate on how the reverse of what he had intended has happened — unless it was no more than an exercise in rhetoric to begin with.

Corruption in government has stubbornly persisted in every regime. In the Transparency International’s surveys of the past 10 years the score of Pakistan out of 10 for perfect has lingered close to the bottom between 2.1 and 2.6. In the latest survey it is 2.3. In four other years it was even lower. The present government therefore need not feel particularly guilty about the prevalence of corruption. It is endemic and growing.

It is, however, both a cause of worry and amusement when Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani claims that there is no corruption in his government and those who allege should go to the court to prove it. Surely he knows that in court trials not even five out of 100 murders are proved.

Nevertheless, it should cause the prime minister some discomfort to hear that the score of Pakistan rose to its best 2.6 before the elections of 2002 when Gen Musharraf ruled with the help of commanders but fell to the lowest 2.1 when politicians joined his administration. A source of greater discomfort for an Islamic Pakistan, however, should be that a secular Bangladesh coming from behind had forged ahead nine places.

The incidence of corruption aside, it is the irresponsible behaviour and as-if-there-was-no-tomorrow urge of the ministers (in fact of most politicians and civil servants as well) to plunder that has rendered the administration dysfunctional. A law minister, for instance, was never a political propagandist as Babar Awan is now for the federal government and Rana Sanaullah is for Punjab. A law minister’s responsibility is to make the government conform to the law. Seemingly, both of them have been advising their respective cabinets how to get around the law.

Again, it is the first time in Pakistan’s weird politics for a governor (as in Punjab) to publicly exult over the increasing crime and violence in his province. Rarer still is for a minister to hurl insults at a governor as Rana Sanaullah routinely does. The coalition partners in the other provinces show greater restraint in airing their differences in public but appear no less callous with public money.

A feature common to all governments is extravagance. This paper recently reported a quotable case. Against Rs117m sanctioned, Rs285m were actually spent — a part of the sum is suspected to have been embezzled — on the renovation of Karachi’s state guest house.

This writer recalls a long and persuasive argument that the public works department officials had to have with the then West Pakistan governor, Nur Khan, before he agreed to an expenditure of Rs150,000, and no more, on the repair and furnishing of the same guest house where he would stay during his visits to Karachi. The only car kept there for his use was so old that it once stalled at a traffic signal. Yet he wouldn’t agree to replace it with a new one.

Contrast it with the cavalcades of today. Some investigative reporter must one day get a count of the vehicles in the use of governors and ministers now. One among them is said to have dozens. No holds are barred when it comes to appointments, placements and promotions in public service. All considerations weigh with the exception of merit and economy.

Maybe some day, the president’s transparent accountability would reveal how a reportedly high school graduate came to head the nation’s giant oil and gas development venture and another, said to be a night club manager, the National Insurance Company only to be accused of fraud — and whether anyone bought for himself a luxury flat in London while renting power for the people.

Mr Zardari should have no delusions that it is his reconciliation, or call it appeasement, policy that his dream has gone sour. A parliamentary democracy functions only when the majority party in the legislature, or a coalition of like-minded parties, runs the government and the rest oppose it. If that does not happen, the people must get an opportunity to vote again. With disunity at the top what expectation of unity can be expected from citizens?

Accountability can be transparent and across the board only if the president, the prime minister, the leader of the opposition and the leading lights of all parties are the first to present themselves before an independent tribunal. The men whose dreams come true are made of the stuff of Martin Luther King, who are prepared to stake even their lives.

kunwaridris@hotmail.com