Public office & public accountability—VI A law that makes disclosure count

Parliament should enact a defined disclosure duty, fund independent verification and require public reporting of lawful outcomes

Pakistan does not need another accountability institution whose first achievement is an imposing office and whose final product is a press conference. It needs a law connecting information already collected with competent verification, lawful action and public reporting. The record should show what was declared, what was questioned, how the question was answered and which authority became responsible for the outcome.

The proposal we advanced in 2016 can now be developed into a Public Office Financial Disclosure and Verification Act. We propose legislation establishing a joint parliamentary committee with a permanent professional verification office, defining its access to records and setting the boundaries of its authority. The law must make it difficult both to suppress a legitimate inquiry and to manufacture one for political purposes.

Coverage should be explicit. The legislation should cover all persons in the service of Pakistan, with elected representatives and other public officeholders separately included, and provide lawful arrangements for judicial and military disclosure. Coordinated provincial legislation would address provincial competence. Constitutional restrictions and immunities must be handled expressly, with any necessary constitutional amendments identified separately.

The initial duty should require filing on entry into covered office, annually and on leaving it, with additional notification of material changes in financial interests. Common definitions should cover domestic and foreign assets, liabilities, beneficial ownership, gifts and relevant public benefits. Family coverage should be specified precisely. Information needed to identify concealment must be collected without declaring independent relatives guilty by association.

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and relevant service or institutional authorities should transmit prescribed records directly to the verification office. A consequential amendment to section 216 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 should make that transmission lawful and mandatory. The legislation should preserve relevant original filings and revisions, establish delivery periods and require a reasoned explanation for a lawful inability to comply.

The committee’s task would be institutional oversight. Professional staff should perform reconciliation and preliminary verification under published criteria. Appointments should involve open competition, published qualifications and protection against arbitrary removal. The office should have a separately identified budget, independently audited accounts and a duty to report staffing and performance.

Committee members must file their own declarations first. A chair drawn from the opposition may improve confidence, but that arrangement alone cannot prevent collusion or retaliation. Recorded decisions, published procedures, recusal requirements and independent review are more dependable protections. An individual member should not be able to choose an adversary’s case or close an ally’s inquiry through an informal instruction.

The law should require preliminary scrutiny of every filing for completeness and consistency, followed by detailed verification of selected cases. Selection should combine relevant risk indicators with random checks. 

The published policy should make clear why an unexplained change, missing ownership information or conflicting declaration warrants examination. Confidential operational details can remain protected where disclosure would enable deliberate evasion.

A person facing a proposed adverse finding should receive the material allegations and reasonable time to respond. The verification office must address the explanation in a reasoned decision. Genuine mistakes should be correctable, with the earlier version retained. Deliberate material concealment should attract the consequences prescribed by law. The procedural safeguards must apply irrespective of popularity, party or office.

Substantiated concerns should be referred to the authority with legal jurisdiction. The National Accountability Bureau, Federal Investigation Agency, tax authorities, ECP and competent service or constitutional bodies have different functions and limitations. Their names should not appear in a bill as an interchangeable list. Referral should specify the suspected breach, supporting material and lawful basis for the receiving authority’s involvement.

The receiving authority should acknowledge the referral promptly and provide a reasoned initial response within a statutory period. We propose an initial reporting period of ninety days, allowing a recorded extension where necessary. That deadline would require accountability for progress; it would not compel conviction or override an independent judicial timetable. A lawful closure should be reported as clearly as a decision to proceed.

Public reporting should distinguish filings, preliminary discrepancies, explanations accepted, referrals, assessments, disciplinary findings and final judicial outcomes. Amounts merely alleged or assessed must be separated from money recovered and liabilities sustained after challenge. Publishing a large aggregate “recovery” figure without these distinctions invites performance to be manufactured through demands that later fail.

The public register should be freely searchable and retain earlier annual disclosures. It should contain a meaningful statutory minimum of financial information, with sensitive identifiers removed. Wider withholding should require reasons, independent review and an expiry date. 

The full confidential file should remain available to authorised verification staff despite limits on public display. Disclosure must be useful enough to reveal an interest that a citizen can legitimately question.

Implementation should begin with the machinery already being built. The September 2026 memorandum provides an immediate civil-service filing exercise. Parliament can demand reports on its coverage, verification arrangements and publication standards while preparing the wider bill. The new legislation should connect existing records and agencies rather than require everyone to start again with an incompatible database.

For the first year after enactment, Parliament should approve a costed implementation plan with dated milestones for coverage, secure access and publication. The verification office should publish quarterly institutional results and an annual report. An independent evaluation after two years should test whether selection was even-handed, explanations were properly considered and referrals produced sustainable outcomes.

This programme should proceed through ordinary, properly debated legislation, with constitutional changes where they are required. A measure restructuring public-office accountability should not be smuggled into a Finance Bill merely because FBR holds some of the necessary information. The Senate, provinces and institutions whose lawful functions are affected must have their proper constitutional role.

Citizens also need a protected channel for submitting documentary complaints. The office should acknowledge a complaint, assess whether it contains verifiable material and inform the complainant of its procedural disposal within lawful limits. Protection against retaliation should extend to public employees who report through the authorised route. 

Penalties for knowingly fabricated evidence should not become penalties for an allegation that was honestly made but could not be proved. A register of complaints and reasons for closure, with necessary confidentiality, would help expose selective inaction. People who supply credible evidence should not have to purchase attention through influence or a television appearance.

The standard of success is practical. A citizen should be able to identify the financial interests of a public decision-maker, an honest officeholder should be able to explain his affairs fairly, and an authority receiving evidence of wrongdoing should have to account for its response. Parliament should now put those duties into law and submit itself to them first.

[Concluded]

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Huzaima Bukhari, lawyer and author, has been Adjunct Faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), member Advisory Board and Senior Visiting Fellow of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE). She also served Civil Services of Pakistan from 1984 to 2003. 

Dr. Ikramul Haq, Advocate Supreme Court, Adjunct Faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), member Advisory Board and Visiting Senior Fellow of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), holds an LLD in tax laws. He was full-time journalist from 1979 to 1984 with Viewpoint and Dawn. He also served Civil Services of Pakistan from 1984 to 1996.