“So what’s the most ill kept secret today?” “If someone wants to be enabled to raise the national flag on independence day then I don’t think it merits sarcasm.”
“OKaaay, but in return the legislation galore has weakened parliament…”
“Stop right there – our politicians are used to working with limited space in all spheres of activity. There is hardly any fiscal space left – successive governments have widened the gap between expenditure and revenue and this is at the cost of the poor man as indirect taxes account for more than 80 percent of all tax collections…”
“Whose incidence on the poor is greater than on the rich; and don’t forget there is a method to the madness: an example being a steady rise in reliance on petroleum levy which is also an indirect tax because it is easy to collect and it doesn’t go into the federal divisible pool which means the federal government gets to keep it.”
“Hmmm, true anyway there is no fiscal space left, there is also no space to improve governance of any state run entity or sector/utility because of nepotism which means passing on the buck onto the hapless consumers.”
“I reckon these contain the seeds of social unrest.”
“The seeds were laid forty years ago, and nurtured by successive governments, so in that respect the plant today is as tall as as…”
“A conifer? Anyway I am reminded of the proverb don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant.”
“Indeed and a common seed, our revolving finance ministers and their close associates, must not be in the running for the caretaker finance minister slot, if there has to be some out of the box thinking.”
“I thought that box is shut what with the agreement on the IMF programme?”
“Leverage can slowly increase, if budgeted expenditure for the current year is massively reduced – which is 52.9 percent higher than the budgeted amount for last year and 26.5 percent higher than the revised estimates of last year…”
“Halleluiah to the Samdhi”.
“Indeed so I hope that the stakeholders – those with the major say and others, that include the ten parties that formed the coalition with the PML-N refuse to allow appointment of a residual person cause the country’s economy cannot simply afford it.”
“Hmmm but the focus is on investment inflows from friendly countries even at economically unviable terms…”
“Back off – that initial decision was reversed by the same body that…”
“OK let me quote another proverb: a society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
“Not applicable – all our old men know that the cycle of their restoration is a lot shorter than it takes for a plant to grow to its full height.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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