We live in strange times. It is quite often hard to believe all that happens or the kind of demands that pour in. One of the very strangest has come recently from the Auditor General (AG) of Pakistan, who has been demanding a rise in his salary of nearly 400 per cent; this would bring it to nearly Rs750,000 — around the same amount paid to a judge of the superior courts and would be well beyond the pay set for a Grade 22 officer, which Mr Rana is currently drawing. The AG, who seems determined to acquire this huge salary raise one way or the other, has reportedly been pressuring the ministries of law and finance to grant him this sum through repeated letters and phone calls, insisting he is paid too little as a holder of a constitutional office. He appears to have stooped lower still by resorting to blackmail and failing to release the salaries of the law secretary and former finance secretary. It is, of course, in many ways ironic that a man whose key role should be to help save public money should be bent on allocating a considerably greater proportion of it to himself.
Even worse, in terms of our country’s future, is the fact that the AG’s demand comes at a time when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has set austerity and cuts in government spending as a condition for accepting it for new bail-out funding. Pakistan, in a state of economic chaos, is basically dependent on the IMF for survival. The AG must, of course, be well aware of this. His demand would, under any circumstances, be unjust. But the IMF sword hanging over our head makes it even more so. It is a pity that such selfishness has become the norm in our country. We need more government servants to think about the country’s welfare, rather than their own. The AG is clearly not doing so. Furthermore, he seems to think that the exorbitant increase he wants is entirely possible, raising many questions about the functioning of our government offices. He should be asked to justify his actions and explain why he believes it is acceptable for him to use his position to try and extract more money for himself.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 2nd, 2013.
View the original article: http://tribune.com.pk/story/543154/odd-demand/
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