SBP helps Dar bring Thekedars back into driving seat
Saeed Minhas
ISLAMABAD: The latest bubble of the economy inflated by our animated Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has already started to deflate a bit after strong reaction from the opposition and government employees for taking some bureaucratic decisions aimed at further dumping the middle and lower class in the debris of hiked prices and actually towering inflation.
The debate on the federal budget resumed in the National Assembly even
on Sunday. It marched on gradually and slowly as members from
‘little-impact’ parties raised their voices and advices just to fall on
deaf ears. Economy has always been considered a technocrat’s ball game
and there is hardly any difference this time around. We have been
hearing a lot of speeches from esteemed members of this august house for
decades but hardly few talk about economic issues as 90 per cent talk
about political economy. Irony of the matter is that even ‘political
economy’ is touched upon only by those who hail from opposition benches
as treasury benches have only one task and that is to provide that
cushion to their technocrats and his (hardly any her I remember as
finance minister in the past few decades) handpicked babus so that they
in unison can continue to concentrate on ways and means of obliging some
and depriving some.
Therefore, we were least stunned to hear from a planning division babu, who has spent some late nights with the federal minister Ishaq Dar and his team during the preparation of this budget when he said that “commands are simple that spur an economic activity in the country through thekedars (contractors).” Babus have come to know one thing for sure that when it comes to Peoples Party the budget policy will be to help the ministers or even their family members but when it comes to Nawaz League it’s the Thekedar who gets priority. Nothing was different even during Musharraf era, when his imported Shoukat Aziz used to read out budgets; the motto was to give middlemen and Thekedars a priority. MQM, many babus still remember made the most of this policy throughout Musharraf era. Mustafa Kamal, hailed as the architect of a new Karachi, was given bagful of monies to make Mushy’s city a dreamland, many recall. Mustafa did that by simply engaging the Thekedars and asking them to give the blueprint and reality based budgets for all the overhead bridges, underpasses and what not. Once the budget falls in his domain, he would call in the Thekedars and ask them to get their desired money but sign the bills for double the price of the project, as the rest would have to go to the party funds, revealed the senior babus who have grown their grey hair seeing all these back and forth transitions from ministers to Thekedars happening in front of their eyes.
“Thekedar policy has been very effective since the days of Ziaul Haq, they remember vividly by telling that the motto was that it makes the old dictum work that ‘seeing is beleiving’. People see for themselves that construction works are underway, cement factories, labour forces, white colour jobs and what not gets an immediate kick out of such activities. Leadership of Nawaz League, babus reveal strongly believe that once we engage a number of people and circulate some money in the country, we will get time to do our own businesses without any hindrance. With simple in hand and almost two third stuffed in various pockets in the shape of JUI (F), JI, Sherpao and even independents of FATA, this formula has already been finalized by financial gurus of Nawaz League, they confirmed.
Meanwhile, our vigorous finance minister, Ishaq Dar continues to shift sides to keep the opposition, his own party and even the media calm. Public is not an issue because he believes that his party has just won an election through the votes of the same public and since they have voted for their mandate, therefore, they should not be the focus of priorities right now. Priorities, of course, remains the social media, the media, the opposition and then of course his own bosses.
By reiterating time and again during his budget speech as well during his post budget briefing that inflation has remained below eight per cent, Ishaq Dar justified his moves of not increasing the salaries of the federal employees and raise of one per cent sales tax. The reason, many in the businesses know, which Dar tactfully kept under guise of inflation was the fact that so much emphasis on these fudged figures of State Bank of Pakistan was to ensure that upcoming meeting of the central bank should further cut down the interest rates.
Isn’t it interesting that ever since Shoukat Aziz times—or even before that—State Bank of Pakistan has been facilitating the ruling elite by giving them fudged figures in the name of their surveys and accounts movements. How ironic is that even a layman knows that every single hike of even one rupee in the petroleum products unleashes a chain of reaction thus increasing the prices of food, transport, health and even rent. There has been a hike of over 40 per cent in petroleum products, which has been the basis of increases in surcharges even by the government itself since 2007.
More than 45 per cent hike in fuel surcharges in all the utilities has come from the federal government, which somehow remains out of sight of State Bank monitors. On the edible front, it hardly takes few hours to trickle all such hikes down to the end consumers. Prices of vegetables rose in the same period between 35 to 70 per cent, pulses by 40 to 60 per cent, fruits (of even much less quality) gone up by 50 to 150 per cent, transport fares have gone from Rs ten per stop to over 25 rupees per stop. But how smart are our financial and economic gurus sitting in the air-conditioned-chilled rooms that they have started giving us the inflations figures by eliminating the food and petroleum products out of their engineered automated systems to make us believe that inflation has actually come down in May 2013 to 5.3 per cent. What a joke, isn’t it?
Therefore, we were least stunned to hear from a planning division babu, who has spent some late nights with the federal minister Ishaq Dar and his team during the preparation of this budget when he said that “commands are simple that spur an economic activity in the country through thekedars (contractors).” Babus have come to know one thing for sure that when it comes to Peoples Party the budget policy will be to help the ministers or even their family members but when it comes to Nawaz League it’s the Thekedar who gets priority. Nothing was different even during Musharraf era, when his imported Shoukat Aziz used to read out budgets; the motto was to give middlemen and Thekedars a priority. MQM, many babus still remember made the most of this policy throughout Musharraf era. Mustafa Kamal, hailed as the architect of a new Karachi, was given bagful of monies to make Mushy’s city a dreamland, many recall. Mustafa did that by simply engaging the Thekedars and asking them to give the blueprint and reality based budgets for all the overhead bridges, underpasses and what not. Once the budget falls in his domain, he would call in the Thekedars and ask them to get their desired money but sign the bills for double the price of the project, as the rest would have to go to the party funds, revealed the senior babus who have grown their grey hair seeing all these back and forth transitions from ministers to Thekedars happening in front of their eyes.
“Thekedar policy has been very effective since the days of Ziaul Haq, they remember vividly by telling that the motto was that it makes the old dictum work that ‘seeing is beleiving’. People see for themselves that construction works are underway, cement factories, labour forces, white colour jobs and what not gets an immediate kick out of such activities. Leadership of Nawaz League, babus reveal strongly believe that once we engage a number of people and circulate some money in the country, we will get time to do our own businesses without any hindrance. With simple in hand and almost two third stuffed in various pockets in the shape of JUI (F), JI, Sherpao and even independents of FATA, this formula has already been finalized by financial gurus of Nawaz League, they confirmed.
Meanwhile, our vigorous finance minister, Ishaq Dar continues to shift sides to keep the opposition, his own party and even the media calm. Public is not an issue because he believes that his party has just won an election through the votes of the same public and since they have voted for their mandate, therefore, they should not be the focus of priorities right now. Priorities, of course, remains the social media, the media, the opposition and then of course his own bosses.
By reiterating time and again during his budget speech as well during his post budget briefing that inflation has remained below eight per cent, Ishaq Dar justified his moves of not increasing the salaries of the federal employees and raise of one per cent sales tax. The reason, many in the businesses know, which Dar tactfully kept under guise of inflation was the fact that so much emphasis on these fudged figures of State Bank of Pakistan was to ensure that upcoming meeting of the central bank should further cut down the interest rates.
Isn’t it interesting that ever since Shoukat Aziz times—or even before that—State Bank of Pakistan has been facilitating the ruling elite by giving them fudged figures in the name of their surveys and accounts movements. How ironic is that even a layman knows that every single hike of even one rupee in the petroleum products unleashes a chain of reaction thus increasing the prices of food, transport, health and even rent. There has been a hike of over 40 per cent in petroleum products, which has been the basis of increases in surcharges even by the government itself since 2007.
More than 45 per cent hike in fuel surcharges in all the utilities has come from the federal government, which somehow remains out of sight of State Bank monitors. On the edible front, it hardly takes few hours to trickle all such hikes down to the end consumers. Prices of vegetables rose in the same period between 35 to 70 per cent, pulses by 40 to 60 per cent, fruits (of even much less quality) gone up by 50 to 150 per cent, transport fares have gone from Rs ten per stop to over 25 rupees per stop. But how smart are our financial and economic gurus sitting in the air-conditioned-chilled rooms that they have started giving us the inflations figures by eliminating the food and petroleum products out of their engineered automated systems to make us believe that inflation has actually come down in May 2013 to 5.3 per cent. What a joke, isn’t it?
Thekedari can really help this country give its theka to someone who can manage it
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