The great leap backward

If the PM is really serious about economising he should study the parliamentary structure of other countries.

Politics in Pakistan never ceases to astonish the foreign observer. Had an incident as inestimably pertinent as the killing of Osama bin Laden by a foreign power under the cover of night, taken place in any other nation state, the prime minister of that country would have, in all likelihood, resigned. He would certainly have done so in India, where politicians still resign on matters of principle — a railway accident once propelled an epidemic of walkouts. But in the land of the pure, over which some benign divine dispensation appears to be continuously showering its benediction, the prime minister has escaped censure and emerged unscathed. In fact, after the deed had been done, he went on the offensive. Unfortunately, the politburo in Islamabad and the army are still drowning in purple retrospection, which is likely to continue for some time. But blaming international intelligence agencies and exchanging barbs with the army for the national denouement wasn’t a good ploy, especially as Pakistan is reputed to have one of the world’s finest intelligence agencies. All he really had to do when he faced the television microphones was to shrug his shoulders and say, ‘Listen chaps, we weren’t the guys who made a secret deal with the Americans. It was President Zardari’s predecessor, about a decade ago, after bin Laden had escaped US forces in the mountains of Tora Bora in late 2001. If you don’t believe me read the Guardian.’ Of course, ex-president Musharraf has hotly disputed that he ever made a secret deal with ex-president Bush. But then, as they say in Yonkers, who ever reads the rebuttal?

Nawaz Sharif, eager to be back in the limelight, has kept the issue alive by his latest astounding pronouncement that it is the judges, and not the army, that should investigate the Abbottabad debacle. Now when has an investigation of national importance in Pakistan ever yielded any tangible results? All right, the Hamoodur Rahman Report did finally see the light of day, but what action was ever taken? Did anybody have the courage to stand up and say if people in the western wing had accepted Mujibur Rahman as prime minister of the whole country, we might have saved Mr Jinnah’s Pakistan? Now that US Congressman Mike Rogers has pointed out that no Pakistani institution or senior official was involved in hiding the al Qaeda leader, the politicians should stop wasting the nation’s time and money, and get on with the business of mismanaging the economy.

Until the Osama bin Laden incident, in which he has literally collided with what appears to be a problem with an intractable solution, full of arcane coded messages, forgotten treaties, innuendos and half-hearted remonstrations, Prime Minister Gilani has had a relatively easy time. He has used every trick in the book, placating some opponents by entering into coalition arrangements, intimidating others by threatening to partition the Punjab, doing the kind of deficit financing that has generated spiral inflation and making promises he has no intention of fulfilling. Like his latest pronouncement about tightening the national belt.

To divert public attention from the commando raid, the prime minister, who has a manic enthusiasm for thinking out loud, and a gift for saying the right thing at the right time, pointed out that it was time for the country to economise. These were profound words from a man who has established some sort of record for wasteful expenditure.

If the prime minister is really serious about economising he should study the parliamentary structure of other countries and not contemplate hiring a consultant from New York who charges $10,00 an hour. In the first place, does Pakistan, with a population of 180 million, really need so many ministers? At last count there were 43 federal ministers and 18 ministers of state, making a total of 61. It would be interesting to note that India, who has some pretty horrendous problems and has to feed over a billion people, has 32 ministers and 45 ministers of state, making a total of 77. China with 1.35 billion, inhabitants has 27 ministers to guide their destiny.

Each Pakistani federal minister costs the exchequer around Rs160 million, which this poor country can ill afford. Perhaps Prime Minister Gilani should consult Mumtaz Ali Bhutto, and ask him how he was able to run the province of Sindh with seven ministers when he was caretaker chief minister. It might just work.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 16^th, 2011.