"Locals are not as good as foreigners I reckon."
"Good?"
"I meant they are not as competent as foreigners."
"Oh I see so if a local has exactly the same qualifications as a foreigner we should opt for the foreigner?"
"Nawaz Sharif did and appointed a German national to head the Pakistan International Airlines but our culture is so pervasive that any foreigner exposed to it begins to act like us and need I add there was a case registered against the German..."
"Ah but he left the country."
"And that is different from what Pakistanis do!"
"Don't be facetious anyway The Khan is a trail blazer in that he has appointed advisors with a full status of a federal minister who have more in common with foreigners, and I don't mean Africans or Arabs...."
"You mean Brown sahibs - with foreign qualifications and having lived more in the West than here, preferring Western clothes though Hafeez Sheikh has been wearing local clothes lately, perhaps he thinks it's politic to do so because The Khan wears track suits but no formal Western attire anymore and...."
"Right but The Khan knows how to pick the brown sahibs - he was one himself in the distant past and...."
"Don't be stupid, The Khan is grappling with the mafia and the mafia is defined as anyone who dares challenge any of the decisions taken by any member of his fifty plus merry men; and not all of them are brown sahibs - there is container Shah and Sheikh Rashid and..."
"OK but who precisely were you referring to when you said locals are not as good as foreigners?"
"Two brown sahibs, Sheikh and Reza Baqir, are citing our multilateral creditors as well as some foreign journals who have appreciated the policies they agreed to implement with the IMF...."
"You aren't comparing your credentials with that of...say The Sun?"
"Why not you silly goose, The Sun may be reliant on advertisement support from Pakistan or another country, which the likes of you are no longer eligible for..."
"Oh dear grapes are indeed sour."
"It's the season for sour grapes."
Copyright Business Recorder, 2019