Sir, Pakistan today faces a serious crisis of leadership in all cadres, further aggravated by conflicts of interest of those who are employed by the state for specific purposes, but are involved in commercial profitable ventures. As long as Writ of Law and the Constitution does not prevail, this decadence cannot be arrested. This deterioration has impacted our political leadership and also the uniformed security services, the bureaucracy and with few exceptions also our judiciary. How can a paid employee of state, while simultaneously getting salaries from tax payer, be a beneficiary of commercial projects? It is not just this, but most of them, while being beneficiaries of lucrative government jobs, or traders who benefitted the most from vast opportunities and subsidies, have shifted their families and assets to foreign countries. Just to quote an example, although all our commercial civil airports have been declared insecure, yet the ASF, employed by the state to secure them, are involved in commercial housing projects, offering plots for sale to the general public. The Father of Nation gave us a blueprint for a modern democratic welfare state and the importance of a constitution, but after his death, all those who have been at helm, democratically or otherwise, have embarked on a plan to do the reverse of what Quaid stated. Quaid’s sister was subjected to harassment and even dubbed a traitor. Although our salvation and survival hinges on adopting MAJ’s vision, the insatiable greed of few, has held hostage the future of 220 Million citizens of Pakistan. The irony is that a country created through a constitutional democratic struggle has been ruled for decades by dictators, where religious extremists would hold hostage citizens, dare to dictate our foreign policy, while our territorial sovereignty is compromised by giving sanctuary to extremists.
Malik Tariq Ali
Lahore
