Off to Portugal!
Portugal is the new green pasture for all those who want to abandon Pakistan, but at the altar of its national exchequer. The revelation from a cabinet minister that hordes of bureaucrats and who's who are acquiring citizenship of the southern European country on the Iberian Peninsula is not shocking. Pakistan is infected with brain drain, and all those who feel that they are lacking in social mobility despite possessing the necessary talent and education are on their way out.
The point, nonetheless, here under debate is that how come the civil servants within their ''lawful'' income, hardly enough to make ends meet, afford the luxury of investing overseas in real estate, and bid adieu to their homeland without any retribution. That is tantamount to assured corruption and failure of the system to check the black sheep for their misdeeds.
Defence Minister Khawaja Asif's spilling the beans should be read in conjunction with the Panama and Dubai Leaks, wherein several of his own party stalwarts and those of the PPP were named for possessing offshore properties. So is the case with hundreds of former military officers, bankers, politicians and, of course, judicial officers. It is a documented fact in the annals of parliament that, at least, 22,000 bureaucrats hold dual nationality in contravention of the law of the land. An investigative OCCRP report claimed that more than 17,000 Pakistani nationals owned some 23,000 residential properties in Dubai.
This messy state of affairs is a blot on governance and testifies that robbing the exchequer is a new-normal, otherwise it is next to impossible to stash money in foreign accounts with impunity. Laws and legislations are merely for window-dressing, and there is no prosecution, per se. This is a crime against a nation which is reeling under abject poverty and whose 55 per cent populace is devoid of basic civic amenities such as health and education. One hopes this disclosure from the pinnacle in power will lead to some stringent action, and a genuine phase of accountability will see the light of the day.
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