6 things Pakistani leaders should stop saying now

Eloquence and verbosity are really not our politicians’ forte. More often than not our leaders leave the public in splits over their verbal gaffes.

However, some of them are smarter than we give them credit for. How? They have tested out a few key phrases time and again, and manage to get away with it.
Let’s take a glance back at all those times when our favourite public figures impressed us.

‘CPEC is a game-changer for the entire region’

Instead of guessing who said it, let’s play a game of who hasn’t said it — almost everyone in the government has uttered this phrase in connection to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. The region in question or the game-changing notion always remains unanswered but every Pakistani knows that CPEC will definitely be a game-changer.

‘Load-shedding would be overcome by the end of 2017’

Pakistan’s years of darkness are over, or wait was that last year, or isn’t that 2018? Who knows but we do know that load-shedding will end someday or it could be later. At least our politicians are optimistic. Has it happened yet? No. Will it happen in 2017? Doubt it. But just like our ministers let’s keep repeating ‘load-shedding will end in 2017’, you know for positive vibes.

‘High cost of doing business has hurt textile sector’

You have to be living under a rock or just in Pakistan if you haven’t heard that our textile exports are falling. And they have been falling since 2014. Yeah, such a terrible shock, we can’t believe it either and so can’t the hundreds of textile mill workers. They are in such a grave shock that all they do is repeat the phrase. We offer our deepest sympathies and hope they recover from this loss.

‘Bilateral trade between Pakistan and [Iran, China, etc] does not reflect its true potential’

All our ambassadors love saying this and they should. It’s true. Unfortunately, no one listens to them and every month when the balance of trade figures roll in, it’s always such a shock. Is it really though? We have heard this phrase countless times, but what is being done to correct it? You’d think the number of times this warning is played out someone would do something.

‘All economic indicators are moving in the right direction and the situation will improve’

Our economic managers, especially Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, should really be motivational speakers. They put such a positive light on some really deeply depressing factors that it uplifts the spirit. There is no doubt that they are the right men to steer the economy because all they see is rainbows and butterflies and you really want that in a leader right? Their motto in life is ‘Hakuna matata’

‘5G will come to Pakistan in 2020’

It doesn’t matter if you don’t have 3G, it doesn’t matter if you don’t even know what 4G is but Anusha Rehman says 5G is coming to Pakistan. When? 2020 How? No one knows. Let’s face it, 3G services are rare, it’s a privilege reserved for certain areas, mostly you only see ‘E’ on your smart phone. 4G is rarer still – only two CMOs in the country offer it. But let’s all start preparing for 5G because we have heard (a couple of hundred times) that it’s coming.

The writer is a senior sub editor of the business desk

Published in The Express Tribune, January 9^th, 2017.

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