A RESOLUTION to expand access to VIP services for the spouses and children of former parliamentarians mercifully fell off the wagon last evening during the Senate session. Three of the lawmakers involved in garnering support for it withdrew their names, and the remaining who had signed it failed to show up when it was brought up for discussion. The country needs fewer VIP services, not more. The resolution in question would have allowed access to the so-called blue passport issued to dignitaries to ease passage through various processing requirements at airports abroad. Reportedly, the resolution had been brought up at the urging of a few former senators, including a former chairman of the upper house, who argued that they faced “embarrassment” at seeing their families undergo additional processing at foreign airports when they themselves were exempted. The senators who supported the resolution initially did so arguing that its impact would be minimal, and that it would not expand the VIP culture at all.

This was a shameful little moment in the upper house, betraying legislative business at its worst. It was an absurd move to bring up this resolution in the first place, and to go around trying to garner support for it. The powers of parliament do not exist to serve the personal needs of parliamentarians, they exist to serve the people of Pakistan. One silver lining in the episode is the scale of the VIP culture that was revealed in the run-up to the resolution’s presentation on the floor. All sitting and former members of the upper and lower house are entitled to many VIP services. According to one senator pushing for support, all government servants above grade 16 enjoy some measure of VIP service, as do members of the military above a certain rank and their spouses. This creates a separate tier of citizens altogether — one that is seen as above the other tiers. The level of frustration and anger in the public against such practices is clear. The space, culture and perverse incentives they create need to be shrunk, and not expanded. Those who initially lent their support to this disgraceful resolution, only to withdraw it once the heat was turned on, would be better advised to spend their time in the Senate looking for ways to restrain the expansion of the upper tier of citizens, with the ultimate aim of doing away with it altogether.

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2015