All hail the comedians

Sardonic chuckles could be heard in every corner of the land as the annual ritual of the revelation of our politicians’ personal wealth was made. They are required to file declarations of their assets with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), and rarely a year goes by that their declarations border in many cases on the risible, to say nothing of the frankly unbelievable. The ECP published on January 8 the declarations of the members of parliament and the provincial assemblies for the year 2013 and they make for fascinating reading. The majority of politicians nationwide, all parties, seem to have availed themselves of the numerous loopholes that are in the law, specifically that it does not specify the manner in which these declarations must be made. The picture that emerges is inaccurate to a fault, and calculated to deceive in some instances. The declared assets of our politicians, in most cases, is not truly reflective of their lifestyle — a matter that should be of interest to the tax authorities if they were doing their jobs with due diligence.

It is, of course, not a crime to be wealthy, and doubtless much of the wealth of our politicians is honestly acquired via trade and industrial or agricultural activities. But politicians are public servants, and a greater degree of scrutiny and accountability is required of them, over and above that required of the common citizen. Some of those most vocal in calling for greater transparency were themselves economical with la verite, including a certain recently married party leader.



Some of our leading politicians are certainly very wealthy, and those at the top of the tree have made a display of openness without making full disclosure, a nod in the direction of transparency whilst retaining an opaque cloak. The law itself is inadequate to the task, possibly by intent, and for the annual ritual to be anything other than an exercise in calculated cynicism, it needs amending — a task akin to asking turkeys to vote for Christmas. Sardonic laughter is going to continue to be heard annually as our comedians take the stage.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10^th,  2015.

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