President Obama has started packing up as the new tenant of the White House would occupy it in less than three months. He has prepared a list of gifts received by him from various heads of state during his visits abroad in the course of his presidency and handed them over to the American government .Some of these gifts are gold -plated and very very costly. The American First Lady has also followed suit and deposited gifts received by her during these visits abroad along with her husband in which she got similar gifts from the host countries. Has anyone among the rulers of this country, past or present, ever did what the American president has done in the matter of gifts received by him? The answer to this question would be a big NO.
One is reminded here of the necklace received by the wife of one of our former prime minister during Zardari’s era from the wife of Turkish prime minister during their visit to Turkey. Were it not for the news leak of our media the whereabouts of that gift would never have become public we still don’t know what finally happened to it?
The rules on the subject are quite clear and they used to be strictly followed by the powers that be up to 1958.The rot seems to have set in after 1958.It would be quite an interesting research on the part of any journalist if gets down to the task of tracing and digging out the details of various types of gifts received by our heads of state, say from 1958 to date, as well as by our senior bureaucrats during their official visits abroad. Did they declare them on their return home as required by the law on the subject or took it away to their homes considering them to be their personal property ?The rules say they are supposed to deposit them in TOSHAQ KHANA of the state bank. An official committee is then set up to fix their market value. The recipient of these gifts is to deposit one-fourth of their market value in the government treasury after which he becomes their legal owner. In case he is not interested to buy them they are put to open public auction and the money so realised go to the government treasury.
I am sure faces of many sacred cows would be exposed through this exercise which is going to be time consuming but which would reveal the hard fact of open and blatant violation of the law of the land by those who have been moving in the corridors of power.
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