Speak up Mr Finance Minister!

With his revenue numbers for the last fiscal year stripped of their credibility, Shaikh remains inaccessible.

It was sometime in October 2008, a rumour was doing the rounds furiously that the banks were seeing ferocious withdrawals and the situation could, within hours, develop into a run with serious systemic risks. Our reserves had plummeted so low that treasury heads in the banks had lost all faith in the reserve numbers being released by the State Bank and the prospect of default loomed. Then a rumour started that the lockers are going to be seized and some branches began to see panicked people coming in and hurriedly emptying out their contents.

I struggled with how to cover this. I didn’t want to do anything to fuel the rumours further, but could not ignore the fact that they exist and are producing real world outcomes. The best way for our channel to approach the issue was to try and get a comment from the finance minister on the whole affair. A brand new finance minister would likely be shy of speaking on the air about such a hot issue I figured, so maybe we should start the questioning with another topic and work our way to what we wanted.

President Asif Ali Zardari was on his first tour of the US in those days, and had just given an interview in which he famously announced that “Pakistan needs $100 billion” in assistance. That was our peg, we’d start by asking Shaukat Tarin what he thought of this announcement, where the $100 billion figure had come from, and then work around to the crisis facing the banking system.

I placed the call and Shaukat Tarin answered on the first ring.

“Can we talk to you on air about this $100 billion business?” I asked.

“Sure” came the prompt reply and then to my surprise he added, “but I also want to address these rumours doing the rounds regarding banks, can you make sure you ask me about that too?”

In days to come, I saw Tarin speaking on air to all other TV channels, in talk shows and bulletins, giving comments in print as well, breathing confidence back into a financial system shattered by the sudden withdrawal of liquidity.

His track record can be debated, but the media never had a harsh word to say about Shaukat Tarin, he never gave us the chance. Being accessible meant his version of things was always available. Look up the coverage; you’ll be hard-pressed to find any news story by any paper or channel that was unfavourable towards him or his competence. And when he left, he earned glowing tributes, one paper headlining its epitaph with these words: “An honourable exit for an honourable man”.

What a contrast it is then to see Hafeez Shaikh, the current finance minister, now past his twelfth month in office, standing in the lowest ebb of his tenure, grinning to himself in his little corner of oblivion. He’s been abandoned by his team and there’s not a word to be heard from him. He sits atop a fiscal train wreck, with his revenue numbers for the last fiscal year stripped of their credibility and bets being placed on when the first downward revisions will come on his projections for the forthcoming year, and not a peep from him. His core task as finance minister — to be an interlocutor between the political elites of this country and their creditors — lies in tatters. Yet he remains inaccessible.

It’s time that Hafeez Shaikh started worrying about how his tenure as finance minister will be remembered. He’s clearly not a man of words, and his track record inspires little confidence. What memorable words of his will remain after he is gone? What will be remembered as his finest hour? What will be his biggest success? When exactly did he draw the line in the sand, to say this far and no further? What was his moment, his hour of grace, and the time he played his hand and revealed his character? I have no answers to these questions, and nobody else does either. Nobody knows if there is anyone in charge of the economy any more, and given the danger stalking global markets, that’s a very worrying sign indeed.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 28^th, 2011.