Long years ago, around 40 in my recollection, I had written a column on “the poverty of our affluence”. The idea was to highlight the obscenity, in a proverbial sense, of how the rich make their money – and how they spend it.

Sadly, most things do not change in Pakistan, though they do get worse. They have learnt to make more money in many more ways. That in this process, they are also making more poverty is not what they seem to be worrying about.

For that matter, that old title of my column could serve me well this week. I say this because my peg is that social media post of Defence Minister Khawaja Asif in which he has criticised the senior bureaucracy of Pakistan for being more corrupt than the politicians. So many of them, he alleged, are purchasing properties in Portugal in a bid to settle abroad eventually.

What would you make of this indictment? Ah, you might say with a sigh that this is old hat. We have been talking ad nauseam about the corruption of the politicians and the bureaucrats. So, what’s new?

Well, for one, the statement comes from an important federal minister of the ruling alliance. It would naturally make news and draw comments. That has happened this week. There was a surge of tickers on news channels. Besides, we have a rowdy social media, and it has excitedly responded to remarks made by Khawaja Asif. Essentially, the issue is the level of corruption at high levels of our governance.

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