Unelected aides
The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government seems bent on setting new records in the ‘bring me news of fresh disasters’ race. Only last week, Minister for Food Security Syed Fakhar Imam told the National Assembly that the record procurement of six million tons wheat had ‘disappeared’, and that the ensuing shortage would have to be met by import of 0.7 million tons. He went on to ascribe the escalating price of wheat and flour in the market to the ‘disappearance’ of the procured wheat from the government’s stocks. This statement rivals the ill-considered statement regarding pilots’ licences by the Aviation Minister in the National Assembly recently that has knocked PIA out of the skies. Do ministers not consider and weigh their words carefully before speaking? But why blame just these elected worthies of the government. On July 16, 2020, while hearing petitions regarding the petrol crisis, the Lahore High Court Chief Justice Qasim Khan, while observing that Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Nadeem Babar prima facie appeared responsible for the fiasco, expressed his concerns over unelected individuals running the government’s affairs. He went on to state that elected representatives were answerable to their electorate, but unelected aides could just pack up their bags and go back to wherever they had come from. As though on cue, the government responded by revealing the dual nationalities of at least four of its Special Assistants to the Prime Minister out of 19 non-elected cabinet members. Another four hold permanent residence in various foreign countries. The government, in the shape of Minister for Information Shibli Sarfraz, is claiming credit for making the information about the Special Assistants to the Prime Minister public on Prime Minister Imran Khan’s directive. But the unvarnished truth may lie closer to the obvious embarrassment caused to the government by the Lahore High Court Chief Justice’s remarks. The remaining question suggests itself: does this revelation let the government off the hook vis-à-vis running the affairs of government through unelected individuals whose stakes in and loyalties to the country may be divided and who have a readymade escape rout abroad if and when things go south for this government?
Such a large number of unelected aides (some handling critical areas such as national security, power, petroleum, finance and the economy) in what is already an overly large cabinet can and does raise concerns. If memory serves, General Pervez Musharraf’s first finance and then prime minister Shauqat Aziz fled to his country of permanent residence abroad as soon as the General was shunted out. He has not deigned to return to the country despite (or because of) cases pending in the courts against him. This less than illustrious example serves to underline what Lahore High Court Chief Justice Qasim Khan has pointed out. With power must come responsibility, but in the case of unelected aides, their foreign escape routes could preclude any notion of being held to account for their actions in office. Even more seriously, as the opposition entire is now demanding and Imran Khan while in opposition did insist, people with dual loyalties or more stakes abroad than in the motherland cannot be relied on without reservation to choose the latter’s interests over and above those of their adopted countries in the event of a conflict of such interests. The opposition therefore is calling for the prime minister to sack such dual nationality or possibly divided loyalties aides. Pakistan must take account of the practice that has crept into our polity of shutting our eyes to putting the country’s interests at risk by handing over important areas of responsibility to those not unequivocally wedded to the country’s interests.
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