IMRAN Khan wants to hold the PTI ministers in KP accountable. And he wants the chief minister to do this job. Not all that the PTI chief has instructed Mr Pervez Khattak to do so far has been immediately complied with. For instance, it took Mr Khan many months to convince Mr Khattak to give up party office to free himself for his chief ministerial assignment. The holding of dual offices was explained by some as a mix unavoidable to, even necessary for, the running of a government. The peculiar ‘necessities’ of governance in Pakistan — which require that certain minor and not-so-minor instances of corruption be overlooked — may come to haunt the PTI again, if and when an effort is undertaken to fulfil the chief’s latest order.

The country is yet to evolve an idiom for accountability, some recent statements by Mr Khan suggesting how far we are from developing that language. The question is, where to start? In this latest case pertaining to the KP ministers, the argument is that while the PTI had received complaints of corruption for a while, it was waiting for ‘evidence’. To others, an inquiry is instituted on the basis of an allegation and the appointed investigators must then look for ‘evidence’. The rather careless use of terms adds to the impression that these clean-government statements also belong to a long series of political gimmicks. Care shown in the selection of words, and institutionalisation of the process to free it from the pressures of expediency, are essential to lending earnestness to in-house exercises in accountability. Until that is done, it will be a classic replay of the arrangement where a leader, as a well-meaning elder, goes on advising his flock while the latter may continue going their own way.