EDITORIAL: Imran Khan would have benefited from disclosing the details of the gifts he received from foreign dignitaries as prime minister while the brouhaha over the issue first erupted. But his government refused to divulge the details using the flimsy excuse that disclosure would imperil relations with other countries.
When acting on a private citizen’s application the Pakistan Information Commission (PIC) had asked the Cabinet Division to “provide the requested information about the gifts received by [former] prime minister Imran Khan from foreign heads of state, heads of government and other dignitaries... description, specification of each gift” and those retained by the PM as well as the rules under which retained, his side should have provided the required answers.
Instead, the Cabinet Division approached the Islamabad High Court (IHC) claiming that the PIC’s order was illegal and without lawful authority.
Resuming the hearing on Wednesday, Justice Mian Gul Hassan of the IHC observed that since there is no stay order on the PIC decision, the Cabinet Division could make the requisite information public. Furthermore, he directed the government to take back all the gifts that everyone who has taken the gifts home during the last 20 years.
Indeed, the previous rulers, including Benazir Bhutto, Mian Nawaz Sharif, Gen Pervez Musharraf (retd), Shaukat Aziz, Asif Ali Zardari and others, had misused the privilege employing self-serving rules to take possession of various precious items from the Toshakhana (government depository) on payment of nominal prices; that, too, on grossly underestimated market value by an evaluation committee.
By now, those articles either have lost their worth or sold away. Retrieving them at this point in time may not be a good idea. More important is the honourable Justice’s recommendation that the government should devise a law to ensure state functionaries cannot take hold of such gifts after paying a nominal amount.
Earlier, responding to the controversy generated by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s allegation that he had sold state gifts, including a wristwatch and a necklace, Imran Khan had said they were his gifts so it was his choice whether to keep them or not.
There he is wrong. The government heads and other state functionaries receive gifts from their foreign counterparts not in their individual capacity, but as representatives of the people of Pakistan and occupants of the high offices of state.
Hence the same should be put on public display. The former prime minister may not have broken any rules in acquiring whatever things from the Toshakhana, but for anyone to take them for a small price to be sold on huge profit in the market damages the dignity of the office he/she holds. It can also dent his reputation for integrity — the last thing he needs in the present trying times.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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