ISLAMABAD: After taking a harsh beating from PML(N) hawks for three days, the PTI finally managed to put up a sharp defence in the shape of Shafqat Mahmood.

 

Shafqat Mahmood brings along a diverse experience of bureaucracy, politics and regular opinion writing for over a decade. He may have erred a couple of times in his political career, but then, who hasn’t?

 

This time he is determined to hang on to the PTI raft, even though he looks like a loner in his party some times. His liberal friends, disillusioned by PTI’s Taliban leanings, taunt him for standing by fundos. Though he is no longer the information secretary, he has a full-time job damage controlling the mess created by his lady successor.

 

Shafqat was smart in focusing on the broad parameters of the budget that very few had touched. Ishaq Dar may be excellent in what accountants are generally good at – bookkeeping. But what is the larger economic model that we are trying to follow; how will the growing social disparity impact our society. He believed that the whole budget exercise was based on the archaic trickle-down theory. The government’s recipe for growth is not to tax the big business and to further liberalise the economy. Dar thinks that this in turn will generate jobs and kick-start the economy.

 

Ample surveys show that such exercises in the past have only made the rich richer and left the poor poorer. The theory has been discarded since long and does not apply in countries with weak or no regulations. The cartels simply use the exemptions to skim off the cream, as they are about to do.

 

Shafqat aptly pointed out that Dar’s balance sheet may look good from outside but the figures look good because of many one-off economic injections. The $2 billion loan from Euro fund, $1.2 billion from 3/4 Gs sale, coalition support fund (not to mention IMF tranche) are one-time contributions, which may not be available next year. The crux was that the growth was not based on economic productivity but temporary economic injections. In fact, the 15% growth in manufacturing is largely because of cement, which we all know is controlled by the country’s biggest cartel. The agriculture sector, which provides livelihood to 50 per cent people, has actually nosedived. And the largest multitude of farmers has been offered only a few crumbs in the budget. The Marxist in Shafqat seemed to have finally woken up but perhaps in the wrong party, wrong place.

 

It is yet again a traditional budget where roughly 28 per cent goes to the defence (including pensions, coalition support fund, etc), another

 

38 per cent for debt servicing and over 12 per cent is spent on government machinery. This leaves only 22 per cent budget to play around. Within this constrains, the funds for education and health have been cut down whereas the allocations for Presidency and PM House have gone up. Dar would not have the guts to try something new like, let’s say, a cut in defence budget. This does not have to be done in a confrontational way. The idealist in Shafqat Mahmood believed that perhaps a dialogue could be initiated with forces how to have better security with less money.

 

But then these are hardly the times for such Utopias. Mahmood Khan Achakzai may have triggered alarm bells but was it really as bad? We came across the duo of Pervaiz Rasheed and Ishaq Dar in the corridors. They insisted that the situation was definitely under control. But then what else are they supposed to say. But the government camp was generally happy over Achakzai’s pro-democracy speech. It is good to occasionally rally the political forces together.

 

However, such alarm bells have a way of contributing to instability. An old-timer pointed out in a lighter vein that no Assembly completed its tenure whenever Achakzai was its member. The 2002/2008 Assemblies completed tenures only because the chaddar-clad member was not part of them. Jinxed, isn’t he?

 

Though Pervaiz Rasheed was careful with his words on Tahirul Qadri but we got the impression that the government would not take it lying down this time around. Tahirul Qadri may have blundered by asking the Army Chief to provide him security. This may have put the khakis on the defensive, exposing the ‘cloak and dagger game’ a little too early.

 

I got the opportunity to listen to a retired Air Marshall who comes on talk shows regularly as ‘independent’ commentator. He boasted in a group meeting, where he thought I was part of the ‘club’, that he was the liaison person during Islamabad’s Blue Area sit-in (dharna) last year. When asked why he did not join Tahirul Qadri formally, he said it suited him because he could contribute more to the ‘revolution’ by coming on talk shows as a ‘neutral’ observer. His patrons make sure that he is regularly invited to specific talk shows and will be seen more in the coming days. He also shared that Imran Khan was also on board at the time of the last sit-in. He actually bragged that he had persuaded Imran Khan to join the sit-in but the skipper changed his mind at the last minute.

 

Otherwise, “we were so close to bringing about the revolution.”However, it may not be so easy this time around. From what we hear in the parliament corridors, the maulana might just be whisked away from the tarmac if he dares to arrive. We hear that the government is looking into his accounts and may have found evidence to frame him, particularly in money laundering. Why does it always have to be a money laundering case?

Published on: thespokesman.pk

Date: Friday, 13 June 2014