The new new — austerity lite

The PM is no longer going to use his dedicated plane for foreign trips but for domestic flights

The new government is making much of its determination to curb excess in public life and the spending of public funds — and rightly so. If there has been any looting going on, it has been under the guise of official business and ‘protocol’. Virtually every government since Independence has made sure that they were feather-bedded on wads of cash, and that there were mechanisms in place for favoured friends and associates to sit under the money tree to which they gave a regular shake. There were fleets of vehicles as well, and drivers and petrol allowances and some palatial accommodation. All this and presumably much more is to be tossed window-wards by the new dispensation, but it is not going to be replaced by anything resembling sackcloth and penitential ashes.

The PM is no longer going to use his dedicated plane for foreign trips but will for domestic flights, and there are to be restrictions on the travel of senior government officers, including assembly members, provincial and federal, who are no longer going to travel first class. Instead they will be flying ‘Club’ — which is ‘First’ trimmed of a few of the frills. None of them are going to be sitting with their knees under their chins in ‘Coach’ and no significant pain is going to be felt.

Where the pinch is going to come, and for some it is a pinch that is going to leave a substantial bruise, is the abolition of discretionary funds, which the information minister rightly described as “a contempt of taxpayers money”. For decades trillions of rupees were handed out from slush-funds held by a range of individuals who gave willy-nilly and with little or no accountability as they saw fit. The money bought votes and influence, twisted arms and skewed outcomes. The discretionary funds were the breadbasket that sustained corruption and nepotism to the tune of Rs51 billion in the last year alone. There is going to be much squealing in the darker corridors of power over this one. More of the same please, the heavier the austerity the better.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 26^th, 2018.

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