Press Gallery
How many Holy Cows we can afford?
Saeed Minhas
Islamabad: When the lines blurred and when it all transformed is yet to be determined by historians but what living mortals of this land of pure are looking at now is that not only MQM but even Noon Leaguers are asking to repeal the Zia’s version of Islamic laws while Peoples Party the supposed custodian of liberalism is silently watching it because Premier Gilani believes that his party has become pro-establishment after all these years of struggle which saw its founder chairman and then another chairperson along with many others falling down fighting against hegemony of establishment.
What a big change has happened right in front of our eyes and we alas could not even notice this that of all others a Noon Leaguer and then a bhai log of MQM—both parties are considered to be all weather friends of establishment—dared to speak against Ziaul Haq’s invasion on the social and cultural fabric of this vibrant society.
How will Ayaz Amir justify his stance on “two bottles or for that matter on Ziaul Haq’ to his leader Nawaz Sharif remains to be seen but for sure he sounded very logical as ever when he too (like his parliamentary leader Ch. Nisar and Khawaja Asif) chose to go after the Khakis for putting up a series of clumsy performances despite eating up lion’s share of the budgetary pie year after year (almost 23 per cent of the country’s GDP) and that too without any accountability and disclosure clause attached to it. Since Noon league’s new theme for this season has turned out to military bashing (because they keep changing it almost every season and/or every new happening), therefore, I kept waiting to hear someone from Noon League speak about the new holy cow of our times; i.e. judiciary, because they too have refused to submit to the parliament by not sending its account books for scrutiny to the public accounts committee for over four years in running now. Finally I did hear Amir mentioning judiciary just to ask the Supreme judiciary to move on instead of browbeating an issue which stinks of Ziaul Haq’s tainted laws. Since the debate is not over yet, may be someone else can bring this up to at least pose a question that how many holy cows we can afford as a nation? Was one not enough that another one is trying to cramp us more in the coming days and years?
But what remained the highlight of today’s performance was the unique suggestion of the chairman of Senate’s standing committee on Finance and Revenue, Senator Ahmed Ali of MQM. Though till the very last moment it remained unclear whether he was supportive of Attiqa Odho or criticizing the judiciary for taking suo-motto notice of her carrying merely two bottles of banned beverages, yet he flabbergasted not only the committee members but also the chairman of FBR Salman Siddique by asking him that how much taxes state would be able to earn if ban on these hard beverages is lifted? Upon finding Salman shying away by just blushing and staring at his own files, Senator asked in more definitive and substantive terms that would it be over Rs 70 billion? Then Salman had to hesitatingly and in his inaudible tone say that may be more than that.
Will we be able to ever get rid of the ghosts unleashed upon us by Ziaul Haq? Because the amount of adulteration done during his time in laws and norms of the society continues to not only haunt us but make us pay through our noses. One can only hope that our venerated Ayaz Amir might do some wonders to change Sharifs and many others in the party ranks.
Another important shot of the day also came from MQM, which of course is in total contrast of what MQM stands for and that was the approval of privileges and perks for the retired MNAs and Senators at the same level what retired bureaucrats get towards the end of their career. Instead of initiating the debate that how to end this dole out formulas crafted for both the civilian and Khaki bureaucracy, it is nothing but another blot on the face of this parliament that they are reverting to nothing but nepotism. Instead of telling the nation that why cannot a parliament look into free-fall and free-rides of this bludgeoning force of babus, who consume more than the combined allocation of health and education in federal as well as in provincial budgets. When Senator Ahmed Ali passed this budgetary proposal and every other party member on the committee seconded it, they seem to have tried to make one right by matching the two wrongs.
Last but not the least was the awakening of Shah Mehmood Qureshi to the bitter realities of politics when he chided his own government, much to the liking of the Opposition benches, for presenting an election-year-budget. Once out of the power corridors, Qureshi for sure has started not only feeling but seeing the realities on the ground. He mentioned corruption, ambitious targets, bad governance, inflation and what not just to make his fellow Mulatanite (Premier Gilani) that he is still a force to be reckoned with if not at national level than at least at Multan level. No matter what one just cannot take away the credit from him that he really spent some time to read the budget books for the first time in past three years and with lots of inside knowledge he really touched upon some sore points of the government and mandated some answers from Hafiz Sheikh on issues of targets, collection, administration and heavy leakages in taxation, leaving the agricultural tax for provinces, the white elephants called state enterprises and the methodology to bring down the budgetary deficit from over six per cent of GDP to four per cent thus ensuring a growth rate of 4.2 per cent in the coming year.