Speed money is exactly what it means - it speeds things along. In my management career, spanning 50 years, the most valuable lesson I learnt was from Agha Hasan Abedi. He once told me "Find out what the man wants - cash, women, a Hajj ticket, medical treatment (at the Cromwell Hospital), a job for the children etc. Then gift it to him. He'll be yours for life". Much has been written about the demise of BCCI. I won't dilate. Just a few brief observations. It had become apparent by 1981 that BCCI was a rogue operation. The auditing firm (one of the big 5), keep mum (speed money). All and sundry were using BCCI for nefarious operations. The drug cartels in Latin America. Noriega (of Panama) was a big customer. Many intelligence agencies of the world were using BCCI to make pay-offs. It was the only bank that turned a blind eye. The reason that the Bank of England did not react in 1981 was because both MI5 and MI6 needed BCCI. Eventually the collapse came in 1991. Only the poor depositors were hurt.
Speed money in Sindh is the norm. Life to death corruption. When a child is born, you pay Rs 3000 to KMC to acquire a birth certificate. When one dies, his family has to pay Rs 5000 to find a suitable grave. The most lucrative profession in Karachi is grave digging. The recent train journey organized for the young chairman of PPP, was all about speed money. For Rs 2000 I would be happy to stand for 4 hours at the Pano Aqil Railway Station and wave a party flag.
Dubai was financed by speed money - right from the very start. Speed Money earned in various countries was parked in Dubai. The various Emirates do not expose the financial data. But research points to the fact that, technically, Dubai is bankrupt. Today, Abu Dhabi can take over most assets of Dubai. But speed money is not a regional phenomenon. It is worldwide. The Balkan area of Europe is supposedly the most corrupt place on earth. The financial offshore centers of the world did thriving business - they still do, in spite of FATF. Evelyn Waugh called Monte Carlo "A sunny place for shady people".
Washington DC is all about speed money. Words and phrases like morality, conscience, human dignity and have no resonance in DC. The most powerful group in Washington is not the Congress, but the lobbyists (the so-called Beltway Group). The lobbyists are funded in billions of dollars (speed money) from internal and external sources. They try to influence laws and legislation irrespective of any other concern. The gun lobby of the US is so powerful that the regular killings of school children (and others) is a mere blip on their radar. The AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is another powerful lobby. All this is about Speed Money. Our very own Hussain Haqqani is now a lobbyist, working against Pakistan. The full extent of his siphoning of the secret funds at the Pakistan Embassy has never been revealed. This is a very interesting case study - a street urchin from Martin Quarters in Karachi to Ambassador in Washington D. C. Princess Diana's death in Paris, in a road accident, has never been fully investigated. She had hugely annoyed two powerful lobbies - the royal family and the Landmine Producers Lobby. With enemies of that stature, death was imminent. The courageous Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, has signed her death warrant. She has annoyed, beyond compare, two powerful lobbies, the white supremacists and the gun lobby. In the coming years, huge sums of speed money will be spent to eliminate her, either politically or physically.
(The writer is the former Executive Director of the Management Association of Pakistan)
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