“No one here but us chickens.” “What?” “The economic gurus were silent and got a civil servant to inform the media that prior conditions will have to be implemented before the staff level agreement would be declared successful by the International Monetary Fund team…”
“Why would that upset you? The guy is paid his salary from our tax rupees and…”
“Hope it isn’t from the petroleum levy which incidentally has forced me to rent a motorbike innovatively termed bykea…”
“And you said we aren’t innovative.”
“Our people are innovative, I can’t say the same for our economic team leaders – present, past, way past…”
“Anyway money is fungible my friend — you can’t say that one person’s salary came from one source.”
“But it did come from our tax money?”
“Undoubtedly as did the daily allowance when the assembly is in session, a Cabinet of 83 persons, even if all of them do not take salary and work pro bono and we also do not give them perks including flats that are available to all parliamentarians and very fancy electricity guzzling houses in the Minister’s Enclave and…and…a car and a driver and a cook but we still have to provide them security with mobile front and rear at state expense…”
“Grapes are sour. Anyway that is employment generation! You would not support the government firing the drivers and the cooks and the…”
“But why didn’t the Finance Minister announce this rather than the Secretary?”
“The media had been alerted that Dar sahib would announce it but without the ninth review being declared a success he passed on the buck to the Secretary.”
“Reports indicate that the Prime Minister told Dar to sit this one out, stay away from the negotiations because the trust deficit between him and the Fund is wider than…than between Notification Maryam Nawaz (NMN) and The Khan.”
“Yeah but you know and I know that he likes to be on television and a day earlier while the Minister of State Ghous Pasha held a press conference on the status of the negotiations with the Fund, the only major economic activity in the country these weeks past, Dar sahib issued a press release that he was getting together donations, not private, government funded, for the victims of the earthquake in Turkey/Syria…”
“Perhaps he was aiming for an international role…”
“Don’t be facetious. Did you hear NMN say that during Nawaz Sharif’s time the economy (and she raised her hand skywards) and during The Khan administration she pointed downwards…”
“Sleight of hand?”
“Ah you mean when there is no knowledge of a subject…”
“How dare you! She is the progeny of none other than Nawaz Sharif you idiot! There is knowledge of everything.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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