By Agha Iqrar Haroon
An X statement by Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif is nowadays at the center stage. In his statement, the veteran politician alleged that more than half of Pakistan’s bureaucrats have acquired property in Portugal and are preparing to obtain its citizenship.
His statement had a pinch of exaggeration, but it is neither unfounded nor untrue. Khawaja Asif’s statement, corroborated by a 2023 Pakistan Institute of Development Economics report estimating the lifetime cost of a senior bureaucrat at Rs. 869 million, raises questions about the unchecked financial burden on the state by the civil bureaucracy that is not ready even to withdraw their medical bills. Khawaja Asif, who would be 76 on August 9, 2025, spent over half of his life in politics, and his comments should be taken as the ‘voice of a wise man’ amid India-Pakistan tensions, suggesting a strategic escalation of his narrative to challenge the entrenched bureaucratic “System” he accuses of manipulating governance.
In January 2025, a National Assembly panel was informed that over 22,000 serving bureaucrats in Pakistan held dual nationality. Some of them at that time were serving at highly sensitive posts. According to my understanding, over a million top bureaucrats got dual nationalities through the relaxation of rules in the last 20 years. I have reason to say that 22,000 bureaucrats are documented as having dual nationalities, but the State of Pakistan has no record of how many serving bureaucrats have already managed dual nationalities of their children and spouses, and soon after retirement, would start the process of their dual nationalities through their spouses and children. Not a single bureaucrat or his/her family has applied for dual nationality of Russia and China, and 100 percent target market is the Global North—North American and EU countries.
In a post shared from Asif’s official X (formerly Twitter) account, he accused bureaucrats of amassing billions in corruption, citing an example of a former close aide to ex-Punjab chief minister Usman Buzdar who allegedly received four billion rupees as salami (cash gift on marriage ceremonies) during his daughters’ weddings. Asif claimed such officials are now leading comfortable retired lives while politicians merely survive on their leftovers, with no access to foreign citizenship due to electoral obligations.
On the other hand, the Establishment Division and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) have not taken his statement seriously, calling it a wild statement, and his party is also silent on his claims. There was a time in the recent past when the Establishment Division was run by a Secretary having dual nationality of the United States, so one can understand the indifferent response of this Division. Moreover, according to a report of 2014, several officers of NAB and the Intelligence Bureau were (are) dual nationals. Therefore, the silence of NAB, IB, and the Establishment Division over allegations of Khawaja Asif is quite understandable.
Writer of this article in his book titled ‘How does Superclass rule the Nations? A Case Study from Pakistan, published in 2024, dedicated three chapters to the manipulation and dual nationalities of civil bureaucracy. Chapters were dedicated how civil bureaucrats manipulate information, events, rulers, rules and the system to safeguard them and one of the prime maneuvering of civil bureaucracy had been telling people that ills of Pakistan are linked either with “Army” or with “Politicians” and they had successfully established among public that “Foj or Siasatdan Mulk ko Kha gay Hain” (Military and politicians have eaten up the country).
This cliché has been so successfully sold out and bought by public that there is room left to tell the public that the Army and the politicians have civilian administration to rule during Martial Laws, Semi Martial Laws and during so-called democratic governments and civil bureaucrats are officially “Principal Accounting Officers” of the ministries and no one else then them enjoy power and pleasure of financial spendings. You would hardly find any news, articles, discussions and debates about how a Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner, Assistant Commissioner or Secretary lives life beyond legal resources and how bureaucrats are using their power against people but you can find thousands of such news, articles, discussions, debates and books where you can read information and mostly misinformation about politicians and military bureaucracy.
You can find several pieces about the lifestyle of politicians and military bureaucracy, but you would hardly find information about how many official perks and privileges a civil bureaucrat has. You will find countless pieces that show how many plots a military men get during his service and how many plots a politician has bought or got during life lifetime, but you would never find information on how many plots and apartments a civil bureaucrat gets through allotments, etc.
According to a report published 21 years ago, Pakistan’s civil bureaucracy was top-heavy among Third World countries and also the most expensive civil cadre, with its 100 front-line civil servants costing the government nearly half a billion rupees annually (in 2004).
The situation has worsened after 21 years, and according to the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics PIDE report published in 2023, the lifetime cost of a 22 BPS official is around Rs. 869 million, the PBS-21 cost is Rs. 781 million, and the BPS-20 officer costs Rs. 689 million to the public exchequer. According to data available for the year 2022 (Pakistan Bureau of Statistics), the latest headcount of federal government employees in Pakistan is 1,374,911 as of December 2022. This number includes civilians, armed forces, and autonomous/semi-autonomous/ corporations.
The cost of paying civil bureaucracy/employees is about Rs 3 trillion, and pensions cost about Rs 1.5 trillion. Project workers, people working in government companies, and other organizations, cost approximately another Rs 2.5 trillion. Salaries for the military, the total amount spent on wages, amount to around Rs 1 trillion.
A grade-22 officer is entitled to a telephone connection with unlimited billing at his office as well as at his residence. This is in addition to the prestigious green connection and a mobile phone with, again, unlimited billing. A grade-22 officer is generally entitled to two vehicles along with drivers, free fuel, and maintenance. But the general practice is to use as many vehicles as required from the fleet of vehicles available at the disposal of the officer’s ministry or department. The family can use them for shopping and for the children to go to school. Technically, federal secretaries are not entitled to be paid for utilities like electricity and gas. But the heads of autonomous bodies and corporations are. So there lies the loophole. Almost all federal secretaries are ex officio chairmen of one or more autonomous bodies or corporations. For example, the Ministry of Petroleum has the OGDC, the Ministry of Industries had PICIC in the past, and the Ministry of Commerce has the State Life Corporation under its wings. The Ministry of Information has PTV, Shalimar Recording, and Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation, so one can find this practice in almost every other ministry. A grade-22 officer and his family are entitled to first-class medical treatment, and the list of hospitals on the panel reserved for them is the country’s most expensive. According to an estimation, a grade 22 and 21 officer enjoys 8 to 15 personal staffers such as gardeners, cooks, drivers, runners, etc. The austerity campaign of bureaucracy and the government has now deleted the jobs of gardeners from the list, while the rest of the perks are there.
The living of grade-22 officers in provinces is even more luxurious. A provincial chief secretary has his house on 25 kanals that is inhabited by a whole colony of servants, including a Dhobighaat. Some still live like in the good old days of the Raj with their houses stretching into acres. Interestingly, this is the story of the legal side of their careers. Most of what has been mentioned is perfectly legal, and there is hardly anything they can be nabbed for. Of course, there are anomalies in the system.
In the meantime, the cost of general administration continues to balloon to over 9.8 per cent of the country’s total expenditure. The Government Officers’ Residence (GORs) are expanding at the cost of taxpayers, who are sometimes barred even from passing through these GORs. At the provincial level, almost every Assistant Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner, and Commissioner has more than one SUV, costing over 20 to 25 million rupees for each vehicle.
The above-mentioned information is about the honest means enjoyed by a bureaucrat, while Khawaja Asif is talking about the illegal means used by bureaucrats for enjoying lives a normal citizen could not think about, and how much the ill-gotten money a corrupt bureaucrat can have in his/her secret storage.
The statement of Khawaja Asif is not untrue that the country looks like a piece of land of the higher bureaucracy, by the higher bureaucracy and for the higher bureaucracy and no government has will to challenge the power of the bureaucracy and reviewing the Establishment Code, also known as Esta Code, that is the toolkit of bureaucrats to get every decision in their favour; therefore, bureaucrats have not allowed any government to touch/amend, or change. So it is unlikely that the statement of Kh Asif impacts the ‘System’ that will continue to run with the same toolkit and with the same rulebook.
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this article/Opinion/Comment are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the DND Thought Center and Dispatch News Desk (DND). Assumptions made within the analysis are not reflective of the position of the DND Thought Center and Dispatch News Desk.
