“The Economic Advisory Council (EAC) met via video link and was tasked to come up with short term, medium term and long term road maps for sectors with the objective of achieving sustainable development and was chaired by none other than The Khan…”

“Ah that makes me nostalgic – isn’t that what used to happen during the early Khan administration’s days?”

“Don’t be facetious.”

“But the objectives are kind of too challenging! Are they getting paid?”

“I am not sure, perhaps for the love of the country you know as a public service. But the majority are those already occupying positions in the administration so are already drawing a salary – I mean the meeting was attended by four federal ministers (including the Minister for Finance), two advisors, three special assistants to the prime minister and some private members one of whom worked for a multilateral and oh that reminds me, Governor State Bank was there, as was Chairman Investment Board…”

“So how many members are there in the EAC?”

“I am not sure but the selected outnumbered the elected.”

“Hey even those from the private sector were selected so the balance in favour of the non-elected was heavier than you reckon.”

“I would have thought two and a half years into his tenure the prime minister would have realized that performance of quite a few of his elected and non-elected is kind of dubious…”

“Hmmm, what I don’t understand is that first the Prime Minister set up 30 plus task forces in 2018 all of whom have submitted their recommendations and so why does he need the EAC? Why not just begin to implement some of the good recommendations that they submitted and…”

“What do you have against the EAC members?”

“Too many cooks spoil the broth as they say – and especially during Ramazan with identified times for sehr and iftaar…so if you have one cook to prepare you will get the food on time. You have so many and…”

“I don’t think The Khan can relate to that, use cricket terms.”

“I am not sure, I mean in cricket you have a given number of players, no additions nor subtractions are possible, hey is that why The Khan, the perennial teenager did the one thing he wasn’t allowed to in cricket – appointed many advisors and special assistants and…”

“Don’t be facetious. Cricket terms…”

“Can’t think of any but you know administration after administration has followed the same economic route – can’t slash current expenditure, can’t widen the tax net, can’t reform the electricity sector, so let’s borrow and oh yes pass inefficiencies onto the consumers….so I guess the work may not be as much of a challenge for the EAC members – old and new.”

“Hmmmm.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021