EDITORIAL: If it wasn't a bit rich of one of the PM's aides to table a bill in what is after all a Third World country's parliament seeking extension of business class travel privileges for his colleagues and their families - a rarity that drew immediate, unanimous support from both sides of the aisle last March - the government itself went a step further and weaseled the said privileges into the present fiscal's budget. Apparently, everybody in parliament thinks it's appropriate for tax money in a country as poor as Pakistan to buy 25 business class tickets for parliamentarians, and their families, and one friend, every year. Usually, parliament is more an empty house than the chamber where the people's chosen representatives legislate for their benefit in strict accordance with the constitution; regardless of the party in power. But on the odd occasion when a decent number of ministers do show up, they end up at each other's throats without giving the slightest consideration to the subject(s) under discussion.
That all this is happening in the time of the PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf) government ought to have everybody even more upset about it than usual. Wasn't it Prime Minister Imran Khan who wouldn't offer anybody biscuits with tea out of state money, and sold away the PM House's cows, and reduced the number of cars for the prime minister, only to cut down on official expenditures? And hasn't he ridiculed everybody in government before him for taking more out of the kitty than they deserved? Surely, it's very odd then that his administration is able to scheme such policies into the rulebook; with or without his knowledge.
But, then, most people are now used to the skipper going back on his word more often than not. It's also been reported in prime time news, and not denied by the government, and the PM wasn't exactly spot on when he claimed that the PM House's annual budget had shrunk under his watch. It is therefore a matter of much concern that the man who promised to run parliament on the Westminster model, promised Question Time every fortnight, championed freedom of the press, and whose heart always ached for the lesser fortunate now presides over a very popular government but his visits to the House make for Breaking News of television, his administration is bending over backwards to strangle all sorts of traditional and social media, and his ministers want lifestyles for the high and mighty the likes of which even rich countries don't lavish upon their lawmakers.
Meantime, the Ehsaas programme, the PM's own brainchild, keeps expanding, which is proof enough if any was still needed that the number of absolutely poor people is continuously on the rise in this country, especially since the outbreak of pandemic. If this trend keeps up then it will become difficult to keep it expanding and sufficiently solvent because of our extremely narrow revenue base, for which our chronically low tax collection is to blame. But when the people we vote into government happily route a bulk of that miniscule amount towards business class tickets for parliamentarians, most of whom are already many times richer than the average Pakistani, then traditional arguments like optimal utilisation of very limited resources go out the window before they are able to impact or even become part of the bigger discussion.
If the only thing that united both government and opposition in the House over the last three years was perks like these air tickets, or equivalent in cash, then the people's representatives have clearly lost direction; and must be called out in the harshest possible manner. Because it is the people's money, of which they are the constitutionally mandated custodians, that they are squandering.
How unfortunate it is that our parliamentarians prefer to make hay as the sun shines upon them rather than spending precious taxpayer money on the bottom of the food chain.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021