At public expense
For a party of change, reform and breaking away from the status quo it is often tough to ignore the similarities between the PTI and the political parties its party chairman Imran Khan deems ‘too corrupt to effectively serve the people’.
Apart from KP, the PTI believes all other provinces of the country are being run very poorly with rampant corruption within the bureaucracy and their respective governments resulting in billions of rupees worth of damage to the national exchequer. But the PTI chairman is uncharacteristically mum on revelations and subsequent inquiry by NAB on the KP government footing the Rs 2.1 million helicopter use bill he has raked up after 74 hours of fly time making ‘private visits’.
Piloted by army aviation personnel the helicopters in question are at the disposal of chief ministers to be used for official work which is a quicker and safer way to get about considering the busy schedule chief ministers have. But there is no justification for it to be used for personal use by the CM let alone by the party chairman.
Such misuse of public funds has become the norm where people at the highest echelons of power do not exercise any restraint or responsibility in spending funds allocated to them. As a result those at the lower levels are also enabled to do the same all at the expense of the taxpayer.
Punjab is no outlier in all of this. An entire arm of the police there, the aptly named ‘Elite Force’ trained and armed using state funds currently protects only the elite rather than the common man. The palatial residence of former PM Nawaz Sharif in Jati Umra Lahore is surrounded by security detail from Punjab Police.
This nonchalant and carefree practice of regularly using the option of ‘bill to state’ that people with access to such funds enjoy has to stop. Evidently those responsible for such splurges at state expense are also responsible for exercising the required restraint. Therefore accountability institutions like NAB should impose exemplary fines/punishment to get the desired results. Increasing the tax revenue is problem enough for this country at the moment, spending those limited funds so carelessly is simply criminal.
