Old corruption files in Karachi are moving again. The deeper question is why Pakistan’s accountability system becomes urgent only at certain political and legal moments. I keep returning to one date: 27 September 2024. NAB Karachi wrote to the Commissioner Karachi about 769 acres of government land and pointed to court orders that had existed for years. The letter said implementation still awaited action despite an earlier Supreme Court order. For me, Pakistan's Politics of Accountability begins inside that gap between a court order and the moment the state finally decides to move. A corruption file does not become serious because a television programme discovers it. Government land does not suddenly acquire value after fifteen years. If an appointment made in 2012 violated the law, the legal defect existed in 2012 as well. Yet the transcript now describes NAB seeking records on old Karachi land cases and more than 13,000 allegedly illegal local-government appointments dating fr...
Strategic analysis on geopolitics, financial systems, and Pakistani affairs, blended with personal stories and commentary from Karachi. Written by Munaeem Jamal.