Pity the politician

We may talk often about the extravagant lifestyles of our politicians. But according to the details given in their statements regarding their assets submitted to the Election Commission of Pakistan for the last fiscal year some seem to live in virtual penury. Information Minister Pervaiz Rasheed has no property, no vehicle, no jewellery and apparently no other item of any value to call his own. His account holds a total of around Rs200,000 and a sum gifted to him by his daughters. Senator Rehman Malik also owns no business and no assets apart from gold ornaments belonging to his wife. Where are the companies he jointly owned with late Benazir Bhutto. He has declared no cash in hand, but at the same time owns property worth 2.5 million pounds in London, a sports car worth 27,000 pounds and holds two bank accounts within the country. Other politicians are considerably richer. Senator Aitzaz Ahsan of the PPP owns 16 properties worth Rs384 million in Islamabad and cities in Punjab while an identical number of properties (valued at Rs425 million) are also held by his wife Bushra Aitzaz. Strangely, the couple own separate sets of valuable furniture and also lavish bank accounts. Another PPP senator, Osman Saifullah, among those named in the Panama leaks, claims to have only Rs6 million abroad in bank accounts while his statement given to the ECP states at one place that he owns property worth Rs275 million in Pakistan while in another section of the document, the value of what he owns strangely declines to a mere Rs75 million. The wealth of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali and Asad Umar of the PTI has doubled over the past year, as has that of Khursheed Shah, the leader of the opposition.

So, what are we to make of all this? It is obvious the politicians who declared their assets as required by the Representation of People Act, 1976, and related laws have essentially attempted to make a fool out of all of us. The exercise seems to be no more than a joke. This is signalled by the failure of the ECP to load the asset declaration document on their website this year, and instead make it available to journalists only if they pay a fee of Rs1,000. The asset declaration exercise, carried out as a formality, does not appear to be even intended to make sense. We can then assume that much of what we are told in the statements submitted to the ECP is not accurate. As we struggle in the wake of the tremors left by the Panama leaks, it is obvious we need to take the question of assets held by political representatives more seriously and move along a path that can lead to less wrongdoing and greater openness about wealth held by public figures.