DAWN - Cowasjee Corner; 07 June, 1998
The grand defaulters
By Ardeshir Cowasjee
THIS country just cannot afford them. The headcount was provided two days ago by the obliging Minister of Information, Mushahid Hussain, but the list has not recently been updated. Any errors in names or positions are his responsibility.
The President of the Republic, Rafiq Ahmad Tarar is a former judge, not particularly renowned for his judgment. He may have surpassed the retirement age for judges of our Supreme Court, but he is sprightly enough to have braved the cold winds of Quetta last November when he was there to carry out an 'assignment.'
As head of state, he is propped up by a brigadier of the Pakistan Army acting as his military secretary, by a colonel as his deputy military secretary, a Lt. Commander of the Pakistan Navy as his ADC, a squadron leader of the Pakistan Air Force as another ADC, and a second brigadier as an OSD (Administration). His civilian force consists of a principal private secretary, a private secretary, an assistant secretary (protocol), a press secretary, a director-general (public relations), a PRO, a superintendent of police in charge of security - a staff of eleven officers plus a few hundred lower-order staff to tend his opulent mansion and its lush grounds, bolstered by a team of tall bodyguards who line the corridors of his dwelling and ritually change guard each day to the sound of trumpets that herald the raising and lowering of the national flag in step with the rising and setting of the sun.
The nuclear-age Prime Minister, Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif, does far better. To hold his hand, he has a special adviser (SAPM) in the form of Anwar Zahid, said to be a good officer and a loyal friend who has been with him in one position or another since the early 1980s when Nawaz Sharif was launched on his political career. Zahid retired from the civil service two years ago but on Nawaz Sharif's return was recalled to action. Again, it is said that throughout he has done his best to guide and advise the young Nawaz Sharif, but his sound advice was and is too often ignored. Anwar Zahid has been conferred with the rank of a federal minister. During Nawaz Sharif's first term in office, he was his principal private secretary; a post now occupied by Saeed Mehdi, also a good friend and firm favourite.
To assist him further, Nawaz Sharif has just appointed as his special assistant Begum Ishrat Ashraf, a party worker, president of the women's wing of the PML, conferring upon her the rank of a minister of state (MOS). She is wife of Jaffer Iqbal, the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly. All within the family.
A retired major-general, Sikander Hayat Khan, is chairman of the PM's Monitoring and Evaluation cell; a serving brigadier, Sabahat Hussain, is Nawaz Sharif's military secretary with a commander of the Pakistan Navy, Misbah-ul-Islam as his deputy. Wing Commander Aqil of the PAF is the PM's ADC.
Also in the PM's secretariat, Nazar Mohammed Shaikh occupies the position of additional secretary (Social Sector), Sohail Rasheed additional secretary, Accounting and Coordination Cell, Farogh Naveed, additional secretary, establishment and finance. The PM's press secretary is Rai Riaz and his political secretary is that controversial figure, a retired Lt.-Colonel of the Pakistan Army, Mushtaq Tahirkheli, said to be one of the stalwarts in the forefront of the PML storming of the Supreme Court last November who was sacked for the leading role he played, and almost immediately forgiven and reinstated.
The PM has at his beck and call two joint secretaries, one in charge of administration and one dealing with the public; two private secretaries; one PSO (Crime); a director of protocol; and a section officer. His principal private secretary has a couple of PSOs working for him as does the retired major-general. Tahirkheli has his own PS.
These are the listed aids to our Prime Minister. There may be many more not yet grafted on to the official list.
On to the federal ministers and those holding the rank of minister, in the order they are listed. Former Ittefaq functionary Ishaq Dar, commerce; Azam Khan Hoti, communications (has he gone or not gone?); Survivor Sartaj Aziz, finance, economic affairs and statistics; Gung-ho Gohar Ayub Khan, foreign affairs; Policeman Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, interior; Healthy Chandi, Syeda Abida Hussain, population welfare plus science and technology; Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, petroleum and natural resources; Spin Doctor Mushahid Hussain Sayed, information; Khalid Anwer, law and justice (how I regret having called him Cicero); Streetman Shaikh Rashid Ahmad, culture, sports, tourism and youth affairs; Syed Ghous Ali Shah, education; camp-follower Mian Abdul Sattar Laleka, food, agriculture and livestock; Chandi's cousin Makhdoom Mohammad Javed Hashmi, health; Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, industries and production; retired Lt-General Malik Abdul Majeed, Kashmir affairs and Northern Areas; octogenarian black-haired Mian Muhammad Yaseen Khan Wattoo, parliamentary affairs; Sardar Muhammad Yaqub Khan Nasar, railways; Zia's opening batsman Raja Mohammad Zafar-ul-Haq, religious affairs, Zakat and Ushr and minority affairs who does not believe that religion is between Man and his God; retired Major Raja Nadir Parvez Khan, water and power; Makhdoom Syed Ahmed Mahmud, MOS environment, local government and rural development; Muhammad Siddique Khan Kanju, MOS for foreign affairs; Master Mariner turned land-lubber Captain Haleem Siddiqui, MOS for water and power; Tahmina Daultana, MOS for women development, social welfare and special education; Disappointing Doctor Hafiz Pasha, deputy chairman, Planning Commission; son of a rich general Humayun Akhtar Khan, MOS for investment; Aga Ali Shah, MOS for housing and works; Ahsan Iqbal, MOS for planning, the 2010 man; the nondescript getting-richer-by-the hour Khwaja Mohammad Asif, chairman of the privatization commission.
Forty-two fully-fledged federal secretaries service these ministers and their ministries.
The lucky rewardee parliamentarians who hold the lucrative post of parliamentary secretary / adviser, supposedly stand-ins for ministers who are not present at assembly sessions and many of whom have appointed their own 'stand-ins': Ijaz Ahmed Shafi, commerce; Malik Umar Aslam Khan, communications; Shaikh Liaquat Hussain, culture, sports and tourism; Chaudhry Mohammad Ashraf, education; Rana Mohammad Hayat Khan, environment and local government; Mian Mohammad Afzal Tarar, food and agriculture; Malik Lal Khan, housing and works; Haji Mohammad Akram Ansari, industries and investment; Anwar-ul-Haq Ramay, information; Sahibzada Farooq Anwar Abbasi, labour, manpower and OPF; Rana Zahid Tauseef, petroleum and natural resources; Iftikhar-ul-Hasan Shah, religious affairs; Ghulam Haider Thind, railways; Rao Qaiser Ali Khan, water and power; Abdul Matin Khan, women development and social welfare; Syed Zafar Ali Shah, parliamentary affairs; Rana Tanweer Hussain, parliamentary secretary to PM; Frontier Pir Mohammad Sabir Shah, adviser to PM for national affairs.
Those listed above (barring the door openers, spectacle-case carriers and menu-holders) are the Grand Defaulters of the Republic of Pakistan. Collectively they encouraged the people to buy foreign exchange, and deposit and earn on it (in FE) in Pakistan, with no questions asked, no taxes payable. Now these sovereigns have reneged on their sovereign promise to the extent of $12 billion. Adding insult to injury, they tell us that the dollars, pounds, yens, what have you, will be paid back in worthless paper. They urge us to collect our bits of paper whilst the printing press still has paper upon which to print. If we do so by a set date, they say 'as an added incentive' they will not renege on their promise of 'no questions'. But, the value they have arbitrarily fixed is their own set rate and has nothing to do with the real worth, the market rate. So we lose on that score also.
On the pretext of an emergency, they have declared an Emergency (which our fellow bomb-burster did not do), suspending our Fundamental Rights, one of which is to sue them in their own watered-down courts. Most of them have not suffered at all. They are Grand Defaulters, highly indebted to the people of Pakistan, having used their positions to reschedule their loans, thus increasing their indebtedness. All of them are culpable, their culpability being in direct proportion to their real or feigned intellect and former integrity. They may well have fooled the many, but they have not fooled the few who never had any trust in either them or their word and always anticipated that the day would surely come when the FE bubble would burst. As is always the case, the real losers are the poor, the already deprived, of the nation.