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"The budget will be pro-poor."
"Whose words of wisdom were these?"
"Whatever do you mean?"
"In a country where poverty is on the rise, and I mean real poverty not statistically garnered, mind not gathered but garnered, declining poverty as concocted by the Government's statistical machinery..."
"That seeks to obey and please as much as any other government department or ministry."
"I stand corrected."
"Good, anyway my question was who would say such a thing in a country which is so obviously full of poor people."
"None other than our highly esteemed Advisor to the Prime Minister on Finance, carefully selected by the one who himself was Chosen."
"Who has been rendered even more irrelevant than usual of late or so I hear!"
"Who? The Advisor?"
"No, the Prime Minister."
"Ah yes, it's the 2007 elections! The President has realised that he needs the present set of Lotas to remain in power and so enter the Chaudhry's with enhanced powers."
"I wouldn't want those powers. To do so much and then only have the ear of the real power! Anyway, I had heard that the Chaudhry's have ambitions of becoming the PM."
"A condition the President may have already agreed to but then the President is also not given to always keeping his word regardless of the exigencies of circumstances."
"That's right but at least they can get whatever they want till next year September when the President's reelection will come up for vote."
"And one year is a long time."
"For sugar kings indeed!"
"I had heard of Sugar Daddys not kings?"
"You learn something new each day. Anyway that's what one senior editor accused them of being. He said that if it weren't for the Chaudhry's the investigation into the sugar crisis would have continued."
"So, politics once again at odds with the welfare of the people!"
"And that surprises you!"
"No, I guess not."
"So it was the advisor who said that the budget will be pro-poor."
"Forgive him for he is trying to act like a politician and by doing so forgets how to act like a bureaucrat that he really is."
"A bureaucrat must be cautious and silent."
"Indeed, much better for the Economic Minister's role."
"But you don't get in the news or the TV if you are silent."
"Ah yes, there is that."

Copyright Business Recorder, 2006

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