A frisson of unease

For the first time the ECP is to seek verification of statements it receives rather than accepting them at face value

If there is one thing that politicians the world over really do not like talking about in public and on the record it is their personal assets. What they own, how they came to own whatever it is and where the money came from to buy it. Everywhere there is some sort of democratic parliamentary system there is also a system of checks and balances, a requirement that members of legislatures sit down annually and write a declaration of their assets. They then send this work of Gothick fiction to a body tasked with overseeing their expenses and assets which duly publishes an annual report listing the gains, ill-gotten or otherwise, accrued and owned by elected members. Sometimes.



Pakistan has the Election Commission for Pakistan fulfilling this role. It has done so with varying degrees of success since March 23^rd 1956, often attended by accusations of corruption and inefficiency. Equally attended by successive governments whose elected members would rather their assets and fiscal doings remained forever under wraps. News that the ECP has decided to start a random audit of the assets of lawmakers has produced a sharp intake of breath given their threadbare submissions. The ECP is to cast a critical eye over 25 per cent of a random selection — an ambitious task to say the least considering the capacity for duplicity among the far-from-snow-white members of the assemblies. A standard operating procedure is to be developed and the scrutiny is to become routine. We warmly welcome this development but have doubts as to it ever being fully realised.

For the first time the ECP is to seek verification of the statements it receives rather than accepting them at face value; and then publishing them in many cases to the widespread derision of anybody who knows the politicians making those statements. That the nation is being lied to is transparently obvious, time after time, year on year. If the ECP can squeeze something close to the truth from our reluctant electeds and their families then it will be doing us all a commendable service. We await outcomes with considerable interest.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2016.

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