Award of the year

We were told “Emerging Markets” had declared Ishaq Dar as ‘Finance Minister of the year 2016 for South Asia

We were told earlier this month that “Emerging Markets”, the newspaper of the IMF/World Bank Annual Meeting had declared Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar, as ‘Finance Minister of the year 2016 for South Asia.

The news came in the form of an official handout from the finance ministry. In its statement, the ministry said that the award was recognition of Pakistan’s economic performance at the IMF/World Bank Annual Meeting, which is one of the major gatherings of international financial and economic leaders and experts.

In their handouts, the ministries of finance and planning and development had claimed that the Emerging Markets is a World Bank and IMF publication and that it was a matter of honour for the country that the publication bestowed these awards to Pakistani political personalities.

After the finance and planning ministries boasted about their achievements, the country’s top dignitaries rushed to congratulate the FM for winning the IMF/WB award.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulated Dar for winning the award. “K-P Governor Iqbal Zafar, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah and AJK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider congratulated the finance minister for achieving the Finance Minister of 2016 for South Asia award,” a finance ministry handout read.

Some days later, however, it transpired that the Emerging Markets newspaper does not belong to International Monetary Fund. Harald Finger, the IMF’s Mission Chief to Pakistan, told the media that the IMF had nothing to do with the publication.  In fact, he said that this was a UK-based publication and is a subsidiary of Euromoney Trading Limited/Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC.

How can one forget Euromoney? In 2002, Peter Lee, the Editor Euromoney, a financial magazine published from London, arrived in Pakistan to present a silver platter to Federal Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz.

The minister had been selected as “Euromoney Finance Minister of the Year 2001” by the said magazine.

In its award to Shaukat Aziz, the Editor of Euromoney, said that the Pakistan government ensured a stabilised economy by initiating a major programme of structural reform to provide a sustainable basis for restoring the country to growth and that to gauge the success of government one has to look at the performance of non-agriculture GDP, which grew by 4.3 per cent in 2000-01 from 3.1 per cent in the previous fiscal year.

In the past, Euromoney also declared Governor State Bank of Pakistan, Ashraf Wathra, as ‘Central Bank Governor of the Year 2016’. Banker Syed Ali Raza also won such an award.

In these questionable awards, the common thread was that the Pakistani taxpayer ended up footing the bill. Struggling state enterprises were asked to advertise with Euromoney and with Emerging Markets.

The National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), State Life Insurance Corporation of Pakistan, Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited (ZTBL), National Insurance Corporation Limited (NICL) and Pak-Arab Refinery Company (PARCO) gave advertisements to the paper last month.

This time, giving an award was much harder to justify despite the advertising revenue.  With not much visible financial achievement in place, the newspaper giving the award had to turn to fluff: “While we recognise it has been difficult times in the international financial markets, your stewardship of your nation’s finances has been admirable since taking over,” wrote Toby Fildes, the Managing Editor of Emerging Markets. The Finance Ministry released the letter along with the handout.

“Pakistan has, under your guidance, become an increasingly important regional economy thanks to the focus put on growing FDI (foreign direct investment), the impressive reputation of economic competence, the desire to have a greater presence in the global capital markets, the new securities legislation, the clever merger of the stock exchanges and its increasingly important relationship with China,” Fildes noted in his letter.

But our media had already caught the finance minister out. In his sterling reports on the issue, Tribune correspondent Shahbaz Rana noted that the planning ministry not only declared Emerging Markets as a WB/IMF publication but also exaggerated the paper’s standing by claiming that it was an ‘international institution’.  Both of these claims were untrue. One can only wonder why our government wastes money on such dramas.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 17^th, 2016.

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