S.Z Ahmed - Member Board, Islamabad Chapter, Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, USA

Conflict of interest can occur in the organization of any size, extent andmagnitude. Both financial and non-financial conflicts of interests arewidespread and the most common prescribed remedy is disclosure. Thepurpose of the conflict of interest legislation is to ensure that governmentpersonnel while performing their official duties not influenced by personalor vested interests and the resulting decision will solely be based on publicinterest. Conflict of interest laws attain two objectives. First, the publicservants and ministers should be proscribed certain blatant conflicts inofficial duties and barred while awarding contracts to an organizationwhere they have an interest or potential interest of their own, family orassociates. Second, the law requires curtailing the capacity of a privateinterest to influence the effective performance of public service bydisclosing their shareholdings and other assets. Despite the law andregulatory frameworks exist in Pakistan, the constitutional requirementsfollowed by civil servants in bureaucracy, public officials in public sectorentities and ministers in government are flagrantly infringed.

Conflict of interest, private interest, self-interest, self-dealing, asset disclosure