Corruption in Pakistan’s water sector

[waraich66]

Corruption in Pakistan’s water sector

Pakistan’s water sector, like many of those around the world, is fraught with large and small–scale corruption. According to a 2003 survey by Transparency International, Pakistan’s Water and Power Development Agency is perceived to be the second most corrupt institution in the country.10 Close to half of the more than 31,000 complaints received by Pakistan’s anti–corruption ombudsman in 2002 were related to this one institution.11 As the World Bank’s 2005 Pakistan water strategy admits, top positions in the country’s water bureaucracy are sold at a high price.

Corruption works in a variety of ways in Pakistan’s water sector. After paying high sums to secure senior government positions, officials need to recoup their costs in the form of kickbacks. They can do so primarily through projects that serve construction companies and large landowners, not through improved maintenance programs and low–cost projects that serve the poor. This is why the water bureaucracy, as the World Bank puts it, suffers from a "build–neglect–rebuild" syndrome, and "has yet to make the vital mental transition from that of a builder to that of a manager."12

Even resettlement programs are a source of patronage, which rewards rather than penalizes large–scale displacement projects such as dams and canals. "Pakistan has well established corrupt practices in the revenue departments that hurt the interests of those who are resettled," notes Pervaiz Amir, a consultant to the World Bank on large dams. "The manner in which resettlement and rehabilitation is handled becomes susceptible to patronage and corruption and it becomes difficult to ensure that every affected person is treated fairly and receives his or her due share."13

Many officials in Pakistan’s water sector also allocate irrigation water to the highest briber and not necessarily to the most needy or productive farmers. "Payments to irrigation officials to ensure the delivery of sanctioned water supplies were reported as routine and endemic" the World Bank found in 2002, and "water availability clearly depends on efforts to bribe irrigation officials."14

Corruption is allowed to flourish because Pakistan’s water sector lacks transparency and accountability. Water allocations at all levels of the irrigation system are not disclosed to the public, for example. The World Bank concludes: "In the shadows of discretion and lack of accountability, of course, lurk all sorts of interests – of powerful people who manipulate the system for their ends, and of those in the bureaucracy who serve them and are rewarded for this service."15

Alternatives exist

Brick–and–mortar investments in centrally managed dams and canals are not the only way to address Pakistan’s water and energy needs. Because the existing infrastructure is not being properly maintained and so much water is being wasted, the efficiency of the irrigation system could be greatly increased. Plugging the leaks of the existing system is environmentally more benign than building new dams and canals.

It is also more economical. A World Bank evaluation found in 1996 that water conservation measures saved more water than the largest new dam in Pakistan’s investment program could have stored, and at one–fifth the cost.16 The Asian Development Bank estimates that an additional 4.7 million acre–feet of water could be provided either by conservation measures at a cost of $1.7 billion, or by a new dam with a price tag of $4.5 billion.17

Decentralized and nonstructural solutions to Pakistan’s water crisis also exist. The Indus Valley has huge groundwater reservoirs, which could store many times as much water as all future dams. Recharging these reservoirs would require more sustainable flood management practices which allow the Indus to overflow its banks temporarily rather than confine it within massive embankments.

Farmers still irrigate thousands of square kilometers of land through traditional techniques outside the modern canal system, and without support from the government or World Bank. Rainwater harvesting and simple, affordable treadle pumps provide a steady supply of water to farmers, without the added costs of bribes for water officials or diesel pumps. Drip irrigation kits apply water directly to the roots rather than the furrows, and use only half as much irrigation water in the process. An innovative way of planting rice without standing water (called the System of Rice Intensification) allows rice – a particularly thirsty crop – to be grown using only half the amount of water while boosting harvests. Such soft approaches have been adopted with good success around the world, and are being introduced in Pakistan. Shifting control over water resources from bureaucrats and absentee landlords to poor farmers would ensure a more economic use of water, reduce poverty, fight corruption, and protect the environment at the same time.

Slow learners

In 2003, the World Bank argued that a "genuine paradigm shift" emphasizing the proper management of water resources rather than new infrastructure was needed in Pakistan. Yet the bank’s new water strategy for Pakistan does not reflect this paradigm shift. It asserts that "Pakistan has to invest, and invest soon, in costly and contentious new dams."18 The 2005 strategy recognizes the potential for efficiency gains, but does not address the maintenance gap in the water sector, and the serious social and environmental impacts of the current approach. In January 2006, General Musharraf announced that his government would soon start construction of the Bhasha and Kalabagh Dams. The two dams will cost more than $20 billion, will displace an estimated 160,000 people, and will further reduce downstream flows.

The World Bank prepared its water sector strategy for Pakistan without any input from civil society. It argued that "while all voices must be heard, much greater weight must be given to the voices of those who have responsibility and face the voters, and less to those who are self–appointed or who represent small special interests."19 This is a remarkable statement about a country that is marred by corruption, in which top government positions are for sale, and which is run by a self–appointed military ruler.

Pakistan is a prominent example for the pervasive impacts of corruption on development planning. Yet as Eigen, Collier, Hoeffler and others have pointed out, the mechanisms that distort the development of Pakistan’s water sector are widespread. White elephant projects that made no economic sense and failed to deliver any developments benefits — like the Bataan nuclear power plant in the Philippines, India’s Dabhol power plant and the Turkwell dam in Kenya — can be found around the world.

Why are governments and the World Bank so obviously flouting the lessons of the past? The bank has always been good at evaluating its own performance, but is notorious for ignoring evaluation findings in subsequent operations. And although bank managers frequently speak out against corruption, the institution’s self–interests align with and reinforce the interests of corrupt borrowers and contractors in various ways.

The bank covers its administrative costs from the profits it makes by lending to middle–income countries. It has to continue lending to these countries in order to sustain its own business model. Since middle–income countries can raise capital on the private market, the World Bank must keep its lending costs low so as to not be out–competed by private banks. It is easier and cheaper for the bank to invest in large brick–and–mortar projects than to process loans for small, decentralized irrigation schemes, or for cheap but institutionally complex programs to improve the maintenance of existing infrastructure.

The interests of the World Bank’s member governments have helped define those of the institution’s bureaucracy. Northern governments favor loans that pay for the contracts of international consultants and construction companies. Borrowing governments prefer bulky projects that yield ribbon–cutting opportunitiesand political prestige, support centralized bureaucracies, and offer spoils for patronage. The bank’s institutional self–interests translate into an incentive structure that rewards staff for pushing money out the door quickly, and not for achieving lasting developing impacts. For example, Paul Wolfowitz recently promoted the author of the Pakistan water sector strategy to become the bank’s country director for Brazil.

The World Bank’s preference for brick–and–mortar projects has undermined efforts to improve the performance of Pakistan’s water sector before. In the 1980s, the bank approved four projects to rehabilitate the existing canal system and stem water losses. When the water bureaucracy resisted change and misused the loans for building new canals, the World Bank looked the other way. As an internal evaluation found, "the Bank did not insist on the implementation of the agreed strategy against the pressures of special interests," and "[its] concern to keep disbursement flowing reinforced this focus. ... The Bank helped to further this distortion of objectives by making it plain that construction progress was the highest priority."20 In Pakistan and elsewhere, the bank’s self–interests conflict with its own development objectives and will continue to thwart its efforts to fight corruption.

Peter Bosshard is Policy Director of International Rivers. Shannon Lawrence is International Policy Analyst at Environmental Defense. A shorter version of this article appeared in the May 2006 issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review.

 

[Cheetah786]

Water and Power Development Agency is perceived to be the second most corrupt institution in the country.

I am surprised I would have thought they were for sure Number 1 but then I remembered Politicians so yeah they are number 2.
Question is which one of these 2 will actually fix this problem well if any of ya figure it out let me No 2 please.