Checks and balances.

Media reports recently revealed information about the salaries of the top office holders of the country as it was submitted to the Public Accounts Committee. It was inevitable that the media would seek to kick up a storm over the monies paid to each official - particularly the Chief Justice of Pakistan, the highest-paid official in the country. I have my disagreements with the top judge, but his salary is not one of them. What caught my eye was the buried lede - the Prime Minister's salary - which is Rs201,574 monthly. This is the highest elected office in the country at a time when inflation is at its worst. I have always maintained that Pakistan's public sector is the worst employer. Unless you know how to agitate about your paycheck, it puts you in a box and forgets. Evidently, Prime Ministers are either supposed to have other sources of income, or they are terrible at asking for a pay raise.

But advocacy on such matters has a habit of backfiring royally. At times people get carried away. Let me give you a perfect example. During General Musharraf's rule, a debate began involving retired army officers and businesses like the Army Welfare Trust. As is typical in our national discourse, the discussion invariably ended up being about plots given to such officials. Since General Musharraf favoured comparisons with Kemal Ataturk, Turkey often dominated the drawing room discussions. I had recently read up on the history of the Ottoman Empire. One historian had particularly insisted that behind the army's desire to carve modern Turkey out of the empire, the bar on soldiers to purchase lands played an important role.

So, when the debate was in full swing, I mentioned this view in one of my columns. Now, I know I am just one voice among many and do not suffer from delusions of grandeur. But seeing how the whole plot project, after many twists, has acquired a life of its own, my guilty conscience forces me to come clean. Remember, with the involvement of private contractors, herd instinct in the other government departments and the emergence of property tycoons, the tail is now wagging the dog. If it helps, please know that I have never sought membership in any of such projects, never applied for any free plots or even purchased or possessed any such plots in my entire career. In fact, during Pervaiz Elahi's first chief ministership, I learned that a media welfare group had included me in the list of journalists likely to get plots from the...