According to the rules, all gifts received by the state functionaries from the foreign counterparts are state assets and have to be deposited in the Tosha Khana (state depository). Unfortunately, during the previous dispensation of President Pervez Musharraf, his hand-picked Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in 2006 unilaterally reduced the reserved price from 25 to 15 percent. Gifts received by any official in the capacity of a state functionary from the foreign dignitaries are national possessions not to be doled out on pittance. I hope the Prime Minster will take steps to rectify serious lacunas in the disposal of foreign gifts and protect the national exchequer from the mischief of unscrupulous state functionaries. AMANULLAH TURK, January 1.