Public office & public accountability—I The...

Summary

• Section 15-A, inserted by the Civil Servants (Amendment) Act, 2025, requires digital filing and public availability through FBR of declarations covering senior civil servants, their spouses and dependent children, including domestic and foreign assets and liabilities.
• [To be Continued] _____________________________________ 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).
• 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.

AI Generated Summary

Pakistan now has a digital filing deadline for senior civil servants. Parliament must ensure that declarations are compared, verified and acted upon

Pakistan is preparing to collect another set of asset declarations. The question citizens should ask is what will happen after the forms arrive. A declaration can expose an unexplained fortune, identify a conflict of interest or clear an honest officer of suspicion. It can also spend its entire life in an electronic cupboard.

The Establishment Division’s memorandum of September 16, 2026 requires civil servants in Basic Pay Scale (BS) 17 and above to submit their declarations for financial year 2025-26 through the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) portal by October 30, 2026. Authorised corrections may be made until November 30, 2026. The memorandum provides for verification through risk-based checks and publication of selected, non-sensitive sections. These are concrete obligations against which performance can be measured.

Nearly ten years ago, in Parliamentary accountability, published on December 4, 2016, we proposed a joint parliamentary committee empowered by law to compare the declarations of elected representatives and state functionaries with their tax records. The central problem was institutional fragmentation. Different offices possessed different accounts of the same person’s financial affairs, without an effective, accountable process for reconciling them.

That proposal deserves revival under the current legal framework. The Elections Act, 2017 replaced the Representation of the People Act, 1976 and the Senate (Election) Act, 1975. Its sections 137 and 138 govern annual legislative asset statements and their publication. The task now is to connect these electoral obligations with tax and service declarations through a permanent verification system.

The civil-service framework has also changed. Section 15-A, inserted by the Civil Servants (Amendment) Act, 2025, requires digital filing and public availability through FBR of declarations covering senior civil servants, their spouses and dependent children, including domestic and foreign assets and liabilities. The provision recognises privacy and security. It creates a positive disclosure obligation rather than leaving publication entirely to administrative generosity.

The Civil Servants (Conduct) Rules, 2026 repealed the Government Servants (Conduct) Rules, 1964. Rule 12 establishes the declaration and verification arrangements, while rule 13 deals with conflicts of interest. This is a meaningful advance. Its value will depend on whether officials must explain material inconsistencies and whether decisions to pursue or close them can withstand scrutiny.