Long years ago, around 40 in my recollection, I had written a column on “the poverty of our affluence”. The idea was to highlight the obscenity, in a proverbial sense, of how the rich make their money – and how they spend it.
Sadly, most things do not change in Pakistan, though they do get worse. They have learnt to make more money in many more ways. That in this process, they are also making more poverty is not what they seem to be worrying about.
For that matter, that old title of my column could serve me well this week. I say this because my peg is that social media post of Defence Minister Khawaja Asif in which he has criticised the senior bureaucracy of Pakistan for being more corrupt than the politicians. So many of them, he alleged, are purchasing properties in Portugal in a bid to settle abroad eventually.
What would you make of this indictment? Ah, you might say with a sigh that this is old hat. We have been talking ad nauseam about the corruption of the politicians and the bureaucrats. So, what’s new?
Well, for one, the statement comes from an important federal minister of the ruling alliance. It would naturally make news and draw comments. That has happened this week. There was a surge of tickers on news channels. Besides, we have a rowdy social media, and it has excitedly responded to remarks made by Khawaja Asif. Essentially, the issue is the level of corruption at high levels of our governance.
Actually, stories with specific references that have circulated in drawing-room and coffee-table conversations, quoting credible sources, are much more alarming than any statement made on record. However, one has to take note of the hullabaloo that the Khawaja Asif post has generated. Questions were raised about why a senior PML-N leader had raised this issue.
Then, there were rumours that he had resigned, supposedly in protest against the arrest of a government official from Sialkot. Khawaja Asif denied the resignation rumour in a report published on Friday. Also on Friday, news channels showed visuals of his meeting with the PML-N supremo, Nawaz Sharif.
Now, whatever may have prompted that tweet, there is a lot to be said about the corruption of our bureaucrats versus the corruption of the politicians, leaving aside the other practitioners of the art. It would be statistically indefensible to say that “more than half of our country’s bureaucracy has already purchased property in Portugal and is preparing to acquire citizenship”, as Khawaja Asif said in his post. But he added: “And these are well-known, high-ranking bureaucrats”.
There was also a juicy bit in the post that said that one of former chief minister of Punjab Usman Buzdar’s closest bureaucrats had received Rs4 billion as ‘salami’ at his daughters’ weddings. As for politicians, Khawaja Asif said that they only get the leftovers and make foolish remarks. They have no foreign citizenship or plots because they are required to contest elections.
Now, it should be possible to look deeper into the allegations that Khawaja Asif has made. That justice will still not be done, and the heavens will not fall is something else. The issue of bureaucrats acquiring dual nationalities had surfaced before and the revelations made were startling.
In early January this year, a National Assembly panel was informed that over 22,000 bureaucrats in Pakistan held dual nationality. This was an astounding figure, raising questions about national security. But one is baffled by this number. Was there some mistake or miscalculation in this report that was widely published?
Anyhow, when you talk about corruption and about wealth that is amassed by a number of individuals and families, bureaucrats just constitute a part of it. The politicians, even if they cannot have a dual nationality because of electoral laws, would not be far behind. Not everyone in the ruling arrangement is corrupt, but the wealth flaunted by so many people suggests that the system itself is broken.
As for properties that Pakistanis have bought in foreign countries, the figures quoted are also alarming. It was alleged in one social media post that about ten billion dollars had been transferred abroad by nearly 10,000 Pakistanis during the last ten years. This had to be black or grey money. There are different estimates of assets owned by Pakistanis in Dubai – and the slogan now should be: Portugal chalo.
To sum it up, the culprit is the Pakistani elite and how it has exploited the power and the privilege that it has. It presides over a system that is inherently corrupt and benefits the rich at the cost of the poor. It was reported just two months ago that under new World Bank thresholds, Pakistan’s poverty rate has risen to 44.7 per cent. Another figure that you cannot comprehend.
To conclude, I would like to quote from an interview that the then-outgoing country head of UNDP had given in 2016. It was published after the departure of the official, with this headline: “Pakistani elite needs to decide whether or not they want a country”.
It was a lengthy interview with a focus on the issue of inequality – mainly of rights and opportunities. The outgoing country head of UNDP had spoken with an affection for Pakistan and its people that he admired. But he felt that Pakistan had not been able to get its act together and that a critical change could only happen when the elite would sacrifice their short-term interest for the benefit of the nation.
Let me quote some of his words: “You cannot have an elite that takes advantage of very cheap and uneducated labour when it comes to making money, and when it is time to party, it is found in London, and when it is time to buy things it is in Dubai, and when it is time to buy property it invests in Dubai or Europe or New York”.
The writer is a senior journalist. He can be reached at: ghazi.karachi@gmail.com
