"I heard the trade policy speech."
"Ahmed Mukhtar in full form was it?"
"I had thought he would love every minute of his speech - full media coverage without any embarrassing questions but he really didn't seem to be enjoying it; quite the contrary, it seemed as he wanted the ordeal to be over."
"It was all those terms that he was using and perhaps didn't understand."
"As a Commerce Minister he should have understood those DTREs."
"Reading about things that you have no clue what they are is harder than you think, especially on national television. I mean there are limits how intelligent you can look when you don't know what you are talking about."
"Come on reading out pages upon pages of a document written by other people can't be all that hard! That's normally a dream come true for our politicians. Full focus of public attention and no way you can really make a mistake as an entire team of competent bureaucrats have drafted and redrafted and re-re-revised it before you are allowed to read it on TV, if you know what I mean."
"Actually I don't."
"I understand that some of our politicians do not read precisely what is written there..."
"I disagree with your contention that bureaucrats are competent."
"Well they are more so than the politicians, about their areas of expertise."
"I didn't witness that when the Minister announced a CNG rate rise of 13 percent instead of the 5 percent."
"Were there any demotions?"
"Whatever do you mean?"
"If bureaucrats mess up there should be some demotions."
"The new batch are not going to be fired anytime soon."
"Linked to as long as our new politicians remain in power right?"
"Correct, some may even say old wine in new bottles."
"That's haram."
"No mention of haram in the trade policy only of halal."
"You are being facetious."