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UNLIKE some in the country, parliamentarians do not have the kind of power that lets individuals get off scot-free even after amassing enormous ill-gotten wealth that assures a comfortable retired life abroad. But like most Pakistanis they also have such dreams and to make them a reality, the parliamentarians recently played a masterstroke.
Since politicians these days are hand in glove with the pragmatic ruling elite, they decided to have their piece of the pie as well when the National Assembly passed an amendment to Elections Act, 2017, which grants parliamentarians a legal path to withhold their asset details from the public. As per the newly introduced confidentiality clause, lawmakers may request that their own or their family’s assets be kept secret from being released to the public. The exemption is to be granted if public disclosure is deemed a ‘credible threat’ to the safety of life of the member or their family. The approving authority for such exemption would be the Speaker of the National Assembly or the Senate chairman, depending on the membership of the lawmaker seeking exemption. Once approved, the Election Commission of Pakistan is legally bound to keep the information confidential — game, set and match for all those with ill-gotten wealth. The audacity with which those in power come up with regulations to benefit themselves is truly mind-boggling.
Our parliamentarians are hardly public servants. They believe that they are above the law, or more precisely, are themselves the law. The best way to avoid audit and scrutiny in Pakistan is to create the illusion of a security threat around the thing one wants to keep under wraps. If any individual or organisation with enough power deems it appropriate to block a road, or occupy a piece of land, they declare the action as necessary to mitigate the ‘imminent security threat’; the rest, as they say, is history. The amendment to the Election Act via the confidentiality clause is one such encroachment.
The idea is simple: as long as a piece of information stays with a few individuals it is easy to manipulate them (through bribes or pressure) to look the other way, but when something gets into the public domain it becomes difficult to manipulate the outcome. There are always some conscientious voices, some crazy heads who despite the threat of hardship keep asking questions. The likes of lawyers such as Imaan Mazari-Hazir and her husband are a perfect example of such individuals.
To avoid scrutiny, lawmakers can now conjure a security threat.
Our lawmakers feel threatened by the very public that is their constituency. Another fad these days among these highly privileged individuals is to sermonise on the ills of elite capture while addressing conferences and in their social media posts.
Civil servants lie at the next tier of this food chain where public servants amass wealth through embezzlement. To discourage corruption, the Civil Servants (Amendment) Act, 2025, was passed in mid-2025; this law requires officers in Grade 17 to 22 to digitally file and publicly disclose domestic and foreign assets. The government has committed to the IMF that these asset declarations by bureaucrats will be available online by the end of 2026. Unlike the previous system, these declarations will undergo risk-based verification and anti-money laundering checks by banks. All of this looks fantastic on paper, but in a democracy, the parliamentarians are the ones responsible for making sure the laws are followed in letter and spirit. Parliament is to act as the watchdog but when parliamentarians seek exemptions from making their assets public on flimsy grounds, then it is just a matter of time before civil servants or anyone who is somebody in this country will seek similar exemptions. Also, passing such self-serving laws leaves parliament with hardly any moral authority to demand scrutiny from civil servants.
Perhaps international lenders see that every condition they come up with to introduce transparency is twisted in a manner that it no longer stays relevant. Transparency-related laws in Pakistan are meant only for what the proverbial Urdu phrase ‘File ka pait bherna” (stuffing the file) describes. Truth be told, the IMF with all its economic experts and financial wizards — masters of turnaround who claim to know everything — seems to know nothing or they themselves are bureaucrats who are more interested in the continuity of their jobs than genuine reform.
Lastly, the kind of laws that are passed these days and the way the public still refuses to take to the streets reminds me of the following couplet by Afzal Khan: “Tu bhi saada hai kabhi chaal badalta hi nahi/ Hum bhi saada hain isi chaal mei aa jatay hain” (“You keep it simple, making the same move again/ We are naïve to fall for it over and over again.”)
The writer is a former civil servant.
Published in Dawn, January 29th, 2026
