Nadra outsourcing plans in disarray after WikiLeaks

LONDON: The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) is bound to come under pressure to scrap its decision of outsourcing its work in the UK to a private security company after the WikiLeaks revealed that Interior Minister Rehman Malik had offered the US all the records of the Nadra.
Malik, WikiLeaks revealed, as a token of thanks for the US aiding Pakistan, came up with the offer of transferring Nadra’s record of millions of Pakistanis to the US spy agencies. He also suggested signing an agreement with the US to make the deal look legal and save the PPP government from any embarrassment.
Although he has denied but not a single person would believe the official denial and it’s almost universally accepted that Rehman Malik must have said what the WikiLeaks has revealed.
This paper had reported on 25 August that Nadra Chairman Ali Arshad Hakeem especially visited London to finalise the deal of handing over Nadra work to an outside company called International Identity Services (IIS). Tariq Lodhi, General Manager, Nadra, UK and Europe, had told The News the project to outsource Nadra was under way since June 2009 and the aim is to ìimprove the servicesî. ìThe people providing services will be ours and everything will be on board,î said Lodhi, a former Intelligence Bureau (IB) chief, adding the initiative had been cleared by all national security institutions.
The officials linked with the deal privately expressed displeasure with the news item but failed to give an official version of the deal and what measures, if any, were being taken to make the outsourcing worthwhile and most importantly foolproof to disallow infiltration of aliens either as a result of the Outsourced Office’s allegiance to their own Government or under pressure of security agencies who work hand in glove with Western countries’ spy agencies especially USA.
The WikiLeaks revelations give further credence to the original story that Interior Ministry, under Rehman Malik, was very much interested in seeing the deal through and ensured that every effort was made to furnish the deal. The WikiLeaks revelation will pile pressure on Nadra and Rehman Malik, who has huge financial and family stakes in the UK where his business empire is expanding at the light’s speed, to revisit the deal in deference to the anxieties of the loyalists and key stakeholders linked to the outsourcing.
The questions are already being asked if any promise of handing over the details of tens of thousands of British Pakistanis and those thousands who make trips between Britain and Pakistan every year have been made to any government or secret agency in Europe. Are details already being supplied covertly?
The scheme will be open to ridicule now as it will be questioned if the highly sensitive details of the individuals will be compromised for cheap financial, political or any other petty gains at the cost of the Pakistanis, originally from the country or descendants.
Also, some of the people linked with the deal are politically inclined, under the patronage of PPP leaders, and have business stakes in the deal. Infiltration of un-entitled people is the biggest concern that reportedly still remains to be addressed. Nadra bosses still have to address this thorniest of issues and it will be interesting to see what mecahanism or explanation they come up with?
While Rehman Malik may give any amount of assurances, if it is revealed at a later stage that the system has been misused, does anybody believe that he could be brought to face the consequences of his move? In Pakistani context, the chances of such a thing happening are nil but in the process it will ruin many lives and will be a blow to the faith of overseas Pakistanis in their country of origin.