Corruption in Pakistan
There is very little protection and assistance for British nationals in Pakistan if a crime occurs.
There is an abundance of data and articles on corruption in Pakistan on the internet. The Last Flight describes the Secret Solicitor’s experience on the masters of forgeries and how this impacted her family. In contrast, there are innocent and genuine law-abiding citizens who abhor the corruption and question the purpose of the country’s Prevention of Corruption Act 1947. The poor cannot be blamed for the highly sophisticated scams. The Secret Solicitor’s parents were defrauded by a few bits of paper with faked signatures that sailed under the eyes of staff at the relevant housing association. Not one official questioned the authenticity of the fraudster’s paperwork.
In a country with a sub-standard infrastructure, where prime ministers have been caught up in scandals from embezzlement to money laundering, bogus and off-shore bank accounts, and corruption entrenched in the higher echelons of government and society, what hope is there for the middle or lower classes? A cursory search on the internet lists a long line of mainstream scams that have besieged the unwitting, from fake medical and pilot qualifications issued to inexperienced personnel taking up responsible posts and playing with the lives of the public. There have been missing NATO containers, and property purchased at intentionally exorbitant prices to illegally acquired land, bribery to persuade judges to drop cases against predominant government officials. The list goes on.
Is it really that difficult to regulate, and why are there no real sanctions? For example, why is there no single unitary system in place to manage the property market? These problems seem to have eluded countless leaders, so it’s reasonable to conclude the Pakistani ministers are unwilling to address these issues or unable to find ways to combat them. Meanwhile, innocent people are killed, and murderers simply walk away without punishment.
It took years to establish the Forced Marriage Unit in 2005 to support those at risk, yet nothing concrete exists for British murder victims and those scammed by property or other fraud in Pakistan.
