At the end of the month, a Pakistani father works out whether the school fee can be paid in full. The electricity bill arrives and the budget breaks. Petrol goes up and the motorcycle becomes a calculation. Flour gets expensive and the dinner table shrinks.
From the same pockets, billions of rupees in tax money were spent on an aircraft for official use. When the public asked about it, the reply, attributed to Maryam Aurangzeb, was: “Yes, brother, we bought the plane.” When questions were raised about Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz travelling on it, the answer reported was that if it was such a problem, she would keep taking that same plane over and over.
The question was never “why fly?”
No serious person argues that a chief minister should not travel. The question is narrower and more stubborn, including where did the money for the aircraft come from, and what was the priority behind that expenditure? Earlier set out of ten questions that remain unanswered, however, the criticism that followed the London trip, and the Rs27 million paid for the journey still follows CM Punjab.
This money did not come from a political family’s account. It is the labourer’s, earned from dawn to dusk. It is the tax deducted from a salaried employee. It is the shopkeeper’s, paid to the state despite rising costs. It is the father’s, who each month juggles tuition fees against provisions.
Asking for an accounting is not an attack
If the public asks why an aircraft costing billions was purchased, that is not an anti-state question — it is a request for an accounting of its own money. If it asks whether a less expensive option existed, that is not a crime. If it asks what the annual cost of ownership and operation will be, that is a right, not a favour.
The demand for disclosure is not confined to one province. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the release of charter plane records has been demanded on the same principle. Meanwhile, ordinary government departments are being told to absorb austerity measures, including a cut in official fuel. Austerity that runs downward and stops before it reaches the top is not austerity; it is a message.
When the reply is sarcasm
The greater problem is not the aircraft. It is what happens when a question about public money is answered with a shrug. A reply delivered as sarcasm tells the taxpayer that his role ends at payment — that he is a voter, a contributor and a bearer of costs, and nothing further.
This is not addressed to one office alone. It applies to Maryam Nawaz, to Maryam Aurangzeb, to Shehbaz Sharif, to Nawaz Sharif, and to every ruler who has treated public facilities as a personal entitlement. Government is not the property of a family. The treasury is not a party’s bank account. Authority was handed over at the ballot box; the public’s wealth was not.
What accountability would look like
It would be simple. Publish the acquisition cost and the funding source. Publish the annual operating and maintenance cost. Publish the alternatives considered and why they were rejected. Publish the usage log. None of this endangers the state; all of it would settle the argument faster than any press conference.
Households are living through a period in which a few thousand rupees decide the month. In that setting, an expenditure of billions will be questioned — today, and again tomorrow. Aircraft can be purchased. Questions cannot.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Lahore Times.
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