Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif has a sense of humour of his own kind. While his comments annoy those he targets, many find them amusing. Recently, in his post on X, he commented about the country’s bureaucracy, blaming more than half of it for accumulating wealth by underhanded means and seeking citizenship in Portugal to spend his retirement in peace and tranquillity. It angered the bureaucracy as a ruling class for branding it as dishonest and corrupt. Khawaja Asif didn’t realise he had fiddled with a hornet's nest.
It’s Khawaja Asif’s style to call names in a light vein. However, the varied bureaucratic classes lashed back at Khawaja for his speculative comments about buying properties in Portugal and acquiring its citizenship.
The NAB spokesperson claimed the organisation had no corruption cases on its ‘radar screen’ as the defence minister claimed. That people know NAB’s radar screen mostly remains spotlessly clean. Similarly, the Establishment Division claimed to have no such record of corruption by the bureaucrats, as Khawaja Asif wrote in his comments. Yet his view about the officials who allegedly deposited their wealth in Portugal and managed its citizenship aroused much interest among the public.
It’s no secret that bureaucrats in our country are a superior class. Their lifestyle, officially provided spacious residences, expensive transport and other benefits and privileges are of high grade. Their counterparts in the UK, whose legacy they understandably follow, cannot even dream of leading such a lifestyle. The British people simply won’t tolerate it. It’s common knowledge that senior bureaucrats and other officers of senior ranks acquire foreign citizenship and shift their families abroad to lead a peaceful retired life. In fact, it’s quite easy to find out how many bureaucrats own properties in Portugal and hold its citizenship.
To prove his point, Khawaja claims he will reveal the names of more than half of the bureaucracy that bought properties in Portugal and were acquiring citizenship of that country. He stated that no accountability had been conducted against the bureaucracy in the seventy-eight years since the country’s existence. And nobody ever checked how many plots the bureaucrats owned in the country, he said.
In the residential area where I live, there reside men belonging to the judiciary and other government departments. Their lifestyle is significantly superior to that of other tax-paying residents. Private expensive cars parked inside the house and chauffeur-driven staff cars parked outside represent their status. Drivers shine the official car before the boss occupies it. The cars usually return to take the families for social calls and shopping. The interior minister, some months ago, passed instructions to provide expensive double-cabins to junior civil servants to perform their field duties. Do the bureaucrats in the UK, the land of the mother of democracy, lead a similar lifestyle? Never! So Khawaja is not much off the mark by his comments.
Seemingly, neither Khawaja Asif nor the bureaucracy imagined that his remarks would trigger so much reaction among the bureaucracy, nor did the latter think that Khawaja would stick to his claim, instead of bowing out. Both sides girded their heels to subdue the other. What matters is the public opinion at large regarding Khawaja’s revelation. Undoubtedly, the bureaucratic class maintains a distance from ordinary people. Therefore, the public would likely support Khawaja Asif’s standpoint against the bureaucracy, considering it close to reality. Besides, the public generally believes that whatever Asif said is close to reality.
A tussle could brew among the bureaucratic class itself between the select few who had clean hands and those who acquired properties abroad along with citizenship. We observe that the disparity in society sharply divides the rich and the poor classes. Instead of bridging the gap between the two classes, it’s on the increase. For many months, the poverty line stood around 40 per cent; now it touches 44.7 per cent, according to World Bank poverty estimates. The proportion of people living in extreme poverty has risen from 4.9 per cent to 16.5 per cent according to estimates.
In a country like this, more than half of the bureaucracy owning properties abroad can only be termed most inconsiderate, cruel and unjust.
The writer is a freelance columnist based in Lahore. He can be reached at: pinecity@gmail.com
