Govt limits public disclosure of bureaucrats’ assets

Govt limits public disclosure of bureaucrats’ assets

• Selected asset information of BS-17, above officers to be made public • Government cites security concerns for withholding full asset declarations ISLAMABAD: The government will not fully disclose the assets of civil servants due to security concerns and will instead publish selected information by December this year to meet requirem­ents of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Finance Secretary Imdadullah Bosal told the National Assembly Stan­ding Committee on Finance and Revenue on Thursday. However, parliamentarians questioned why full details would not be made public when politicians, including the president and prime minister, were required to disclose their assets. They questioned why public servants should be treated differently when parliamentarians and politicians were required to make full asset declarations. Mr Bosal did not directly respond to the objection but said a lot of technical work had been undertaken by the Establishment Division and the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). Under the mechanism, the FBR would assess the data and report its findings to the Establishment Division, which would have the power to initiate disciplinary action in case of any discrepancy. The fi­­nance secretary said civil servants’ asse­­ts would be declared under prescribed gui­delines but would not be published in full. The government has already moved to digitise declarations of income and assets of all federal civil servants in BS-17 and above, replacing the existing manual submission process with a dedicated FBR online portal. The declarations will undergo risk-based verification, while selected non-sensitive information will be made public. Soon afterwards, the Ministry of Fin­a­nce published on its website an office me­­morandum issued by the Establishment Division last week regarding the “digitisation of declaration of assets under Section 15-A of the Civil Servants Act, 1973”. According to the memorandum, the Establishment Division, in collaboration with the FBR, has launched a digitised system for the submission, verification and publication of declarations of income and assets under Section 15-A of the Civil Servants Act, 1973, and Rule 12 of the Civil Servants (Conduct) Rules, 2026. All officers in BS-17 and above are required to submit their declarations of income and assets for financial year 2025-26 through the dedicated FBR portal instead of the existing manual process. The deadline for digital filing has been set at Oct 30, 2026, in accordance with Rule 12(6) of the Civil Servants (Conduct) Rules, 2026. Under the new mechanism, officers will first have to provide their name, designation, personal active email address, mobile number and CNIC to their respective cadre administrator for creation of an account on the FBR portal. The cadre administrator will forward the officers’ details to the FBR, which will notify them about account creation through email, SMS or other prescribed means. Officers will then activate their accounts using their CNIC and a one-time password to set their own password. Once logged in, officers will find a “Declaration” option on the FBR portal dashboard. By selecting this option, they will be required to enter the requisite information through subsequent screens, with the details specified in Annex-I of the Establishment Division’s memorandum. The information submitted by officers will subsequently be subjected to risk-based verification checks by the FBR, which will communicate the results to the relevant cadre administrator. Establishment Division said selected non-sensitive sections of the declarations would be published on the FBR website for information of the general public. The declarations must be filed within the prescribed deadline, while any rectification of errors on the portal will be permissible up to Nov 30, 2026, subject to approval or authorisation of the cadre administrator concerned. Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2026