Daily Times

Sir: There was time when no Pakistani civil, uniformed or elected public office holder was even allowed to have a spouse holding a foreign national.

Only in rare cases special permission was given after thorough scrutiny, before such marriages were allowed. What is happening now is that Paid Public Holders, holding sensitive assignments and important portfolios, are facilitating their spouses and dependent children, while in office, to acquire foreign nationalities.

These immediate family members on oath “entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any state”, which they were “a subject or citizen”. Further they pledged an oath “to bear arms on behalf of the US when required by law” and “will perform non-combatant service in the Armed Forces of the US”.

There is no ambiguity that those who pledge similar oaths of citizenship cannot be trusted or expected to be loyal to Pakistan in event of conflict of interest between the two states, especially when their assets are located abroad and their children live there. Yet important public office holders continue to live with their dual-national families in the same house, while holding sensitive assignments, thereby compromising national security and secrecy of sensitive information. Rules requiring minimum two years elapse after retirement are being relaxed, even for employment by foreign governments.

Pakistan is facing an acute economic crisis, which has been aggravated further by loopholes in laws facilitating already scarce foreign exchange to be transferred from this country. This country has already been sufficiently embarrassed by serious security lapses, such as the revelation that Osama Bin Laden was living secretly in Abbottabad, and that hundreds of foreign security contractors hired mercenaries like Raymond Davis, who lived in rented houses in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi etc, supposedly hired by fictitious security company serving as a cover up for the notorious Blackwater. Let’s not add another embarrassment to the list!

ALI MALIK TARIQ

Lahore

Published in Daily Times, August 3^rd 2018.