“You heard the quote - there are lies, lies and then there are statistics.” “Hey I am not Nawaz Sharif who will be taken in by that quote.”
“What?”
“The actual quote is there are three kinds of lies - lies, damned lies and statistics.”
“Oh so where does Nawaz Sharif come in?”
“Well there is nothing that Nawaz Sharif reckons he doesn’t know, actually that malaise, commonly referred to as braggatitus – or thinking that one knows it all – has afflicted all those who managed to become the chief executive of this country.”
“Excuse me but our military dictators have never occupied that position – the presidency or Rawalpindi residence…”
“Don’t get technical on me, you know I meant the actual person in charge.”
“And you really think Nawaz Sharif or any other occupant of the prime minister’s house were in charge?”
“Well after around two years of occupying the Prime Minister’s House braggatitus takes over. Anyway one amendment – prime minister’s house or Prime Minister’s Secretariat because a few didn’t live in that house though they held that position.”
“Right, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi never lived there because he knew his real status in the scheme of things.”
“Finally you show some restraint, anyway when I referred to Nawaz Sharif I meant he is the only one who actually believes that his Dependent Samdhi is deserving of heading the Ministry of Finance.”
“Nawaz Sharif is right, the Dependent Samdhi is deserving of the portfolio, the relationship being what it is, but he is not capable as the 231 odd million Pakistanis have learnt to their cost.”
“Dar is crowing about the approval of the Stand-By Arrangement and blaming the previous non-occupant of the Prime Minister’s House…”
“Let him be, as long as his tenure ends in August this year and is never ever ever…”
“What about the losses this country incurred due to his insistence on implementing flawed economic policies – the loss of remittances since September past year……”
“Were his policies correct from an accounting perspective?”
“If expensive borrowings – externally and domestically - equal the expenditure allocation to sustain elite capture then…”
“Hey a word of advice to Nawaz Sharif in words that may resonate with him: rock a bye baby on a tree top, when the wind blows the cradle will rock, when the bough breaks the cradle will fall, and down will come baby, cradle and all.”
“Hey Pakistan is suffering from climate change so the cradle must be relocated to Avenfield…”
“Don’t be facetious.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023