By Agha Iqrar Haroon
Last night I had an opportunity to have a candid discussion at an event with old friends. The majority of them had academic routes of Central Model School Lower Mall, Government College Lahore, UET, King Edward Medical College, Military and Air Force Academy, and Civil Service Academy. Some are already settled abroad and were visiting Lahore during the Mango Season. Explaining their academic background was important to tell the readers that they belong to the educated middle-class (maybe upper-middle-class) of society.
Their concerns about Pakistan are that the state has a common man who half-fills his stomach through the daily wage system but provides taxes (GST-electricity-gas bills etc.), and lower middle-salaried class working in the private sector that fills the state treasury with half-filled stomachs. There is another salaried class working in the private sector that fills the state’s stomach but compromises over several basic needs.
There are more classes in society like government employees, traders, middleman traders, top businessmen, and parliamentarians who fill their stomachs and also foreign and local bank accounts with money provided by the classes mentioned in the above-mentioned para. The question is how long this country can survive without social unrest in this kind of governance. Technically speaking all the above-mentioned classes form a ‘Superclass’ that is beyond any law and accountability.
During the discussion, everybody among us including me was worried that the government is (was) neither ready to give relief to the public nor ready to tax powerful people. It does not think of compromise on state expenses while considering the ‘Public’ as a slave that earns for privileged classes such as politicians, civil and military bureaucracy, traders, and big businessmen who are blue-eyed boys of the government. My friends feared the situation could spark social unrest because the middle class and lower middle class were losing their hopes. They were taunting that the country might have a future but only for government officials and the rich people. I can imagine if a well-educated, well-established class already entering their mid-fifty could think like this then what would be the feelings of a daily wager or a jobless person?
The most sensitive take-home for me was that somehow or other the civil bureaucracy, the politicians, and the corrupt business community are collaborating to hold the military responsible for every increase in IPP-run electricity system, the collapse of an economy that was the responsibility of the civil bureaucracy and the civil governments. Alas, there are many myths and speculations about the lifestyle of Pakistan Army officers, and these myths are created by no one else than civil bureaucrats and politicians to hide their extravagance without taking any pain and labor. Putting the military on the butt of jokes and propaganda campaigns is the new norm in Pakistan by those who want to hide tax evasion and their failures in running the governance. On the other hand, the fault also lies with the military which is shy to share the accountability process with the public and is also avoiding telling the people how a collaboration of politicians, corrupt businessmen, and corrupt bureaucrats has eaten out the country.
Since I have been covering the Defence beat since 1995 and Civil Administration since 1988, I can understand that people who want to create a rift between the army and the public are not losers because the military is not addressing false narratives and not sharing what it should have been shared years ago. If we compare the size of perks and privileges between Civil bureaucracy and Military bureaucracy, there is no match between them. Just for example, can a Captain have 25 million worth of land cruisers under his family use as an Assistant Commissioner does? This is just an example and I can share a hundred more such examples. If we have data on the Basic Pay Scale (BPS) and Grade system, the size of military bureaucracy is almost three times smaller than that of civil bureaucracy in grades 17 to 19 while only 25% reach to grades 19-21.
Less than 10% of military officers reach Brigadier rank i.e. BPS-20. In contrast, about 70% of officers of civil organizations retire after reaching BPS-20. Only 2% of Pakistan Army officers reach the rank of Major General and even less i.e. 0.4% reach the rank of Lieutenant General while over 6% of civil bureaucrats reach the rank (grade) of Lt General level.
Moreover, there is no quota system in the military for hiring, posting, and promotion and every posting and promotion is tested on professional skills. In a civil bureaucracy, a person having the 120th position in the CSS examination can get a slot in Civil Administration (Pakistan Administrative Service) if his/her domicile is from quota areas even if he/she was educated in top schools and colleges of the country like Aitchchen College, King Edward Medical College Government College Lahore (GCU), etc. There is no such thing in the Pakistan Army.
Moreover, Kinship is not part of the military system as it is in civil administration. It is generally understood that only the son of a General can become a General. The fact is that no General’s son has ever become the Army Chief and the majority of former Army Chiefs (General Musharraf, General Jahangir Karamat, General Waheed Kakar, General Aslam Beg, and General Ziaul Haq) had no family member serving in Army.
There is a cliché that the Army officers do not pay taxes. In reality, every officer/Jawan) pays water, electricity, and gas bills without any discount and the Income tax is paid at source which is equivalent to two month’s salary in a year.
If a military officer is allotted government accommodation, he does not get house rent as a salary but in civil bureaucracy, officers can build residences in the name of spouse and can get the house rent.
If you talk about the usage of official vehicles and official fuel, military officers live in caves because no officer below the rank of Brigadier is authorized to own an official vehicle, and the private use of an official vehicle is prohibited while in civil bureaucracy even a grade-15 officer can enjoy this pleasure as according to ‘demand and nature of his job assignment’.
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Army officers become members of the Army Housing Scheme from the initial days and then during the service, the amount is deducted monthly from their salary as per the scheme. On their retirement, a three-room apartment is allotted to them after paying a large portion of their pension/commutation.
Plots in DHA are also allotted as service benefits only to well-disciplined army officers, JCOs, or families of martyrs. Apart from the Shahada family, everyone else has to pay the land price in installments even after retirement. Only development charges are waived while every civil officer of grade 19 and gets at least one plot under Housing schemes of federal as well as provincial governments.
It must be remembered that providing housing to the public was the responsibility of civil authorities who were supposed to develop housing under the ‘Development Authority’ system (e.g. LDA, CDA, MDA, FDA, RDA, etc). This is the total failure of the Development Authority structure that was established 50 years ago (LDA was established in 1976 I remember).
All army officers are not allotted agricultural land. Granted only to families of martyrs, and officers/soldiers who suffer disability due to injuries sustained during any operation. Or it is allotted to some senior officers in recognition of their superior services. In civil bureaucracy, Commissioners, Chief Secretaries, and even Secretaries get agricultural land on government leases with peanuts.
The Army Welfare Trust is an independent body that pays taxes to the government of Pakistan. In this institution, 90% of the officers who retire from the army at the age of 44 are re-employed. On the contrary, employees in any civil department do not retire before the age of 60 years. In Civil services, there are welfare schemes like police foundations and they are responsible for providing plots to their officers.
When I talk with retired or serving military men asking them about accountability within their system, they believe that like any large organization, the army also has people who become a cause of concern and sometimes a cause of disgrace for the organization due to their actions. Unlike civil institutions, cases of dismissal of Pakistan Civil Service officers are rare. The Pakistan Army has dismissed more than 200 officers and given severe punishments in recent years due to its zero-tolerance policy. Crimes such as abuse of office and corruption are unacceptable in the army, but keeping in mind the institution’s dignity, these punishments are not publicized.
If we prepare a list of civic facilities that the public does not have today like good health, schools, colleges, housing schemes, good transport, and public security (policing), can we ask politicians and civil bureaucracy who was responsible for providing these basic services to the public—the military or the civil governments?
I believe the so-called civil society should hold discussions and invite former secretaries of civil services (Health, Education, Police, Public Transport, Chief Secretaries, etc.) and ask them what they had done during their tenures. I am sure 80 percent of them who are alive have already moved abroad and would not be available for questioning. Remember in the Pakistan Army dual nationality is not allowed while in civil administration over 2,000 senior bureaucrats having dual nationality (grade 20 and above) are serving the country while the total number of former bureaucrats having dual nationality in the last 20 years is over 25,000. According to research, children or spouses of over 5,000 serving bureaucrats have already got dual nationality and just waiting for the retirement age of spouses. Once the spouse is retired, the foreign national holder spouse would apply for the nationality of his/her spouse.
To whom do they serve? –the country of origin or their country ‘abroad’?
