We, the long suffering masses are regularly offered reassurances by our very caring government that it has “taken notice” of our sufferings: “President Zardari takes notice of fertilizer shortage” at the critical wheat sowing stage. “Prime Minister takes notice of ever increasing circular debt”. The mystery is what happens after they take notice. Nothing, of course. We should be grateful they have found the time to inform us they know about our problems. It’s just that they cannot be bothered to do anything about it.
Perhaps they should pause and remember what happened to Queen Marie Antoinette.
Episodes of corruption have a habit of reoccurring as action replays. Earlier this year, the Government of Pakistan had appointed Adnan A Khwaja, a convict in a corruption case prosecuted by NAB, as Managing Director of the state run OGDC.
This appointment had to be annulled when the Supreme Court took suo motu notice of this shining example of good governance. Earlier, the Government had appointed Tauqeer Sadiq, a close relative of Jahangir Badar, as Chairman Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority. During the hearing of a petition filed in the Islamabad High Court, the Higher Education Commission declared his degree bogus. Sadiq had to go.
Reports are now doing the rounds that the GOP is preparing to inflict another indignity upon the people of Pakistan. One Muhammad Khan Bhatti, an underling of the Chaudhries of Gujrat is about to be appointed Managing Director of the Utility Stores Corporation. This is the same Bhatti who was muscle man for the Chaudhries in Phalia, and was appointed to the clerical staff of the Punjab Assembly on the sifarish of the Chaudhries. Chaudhry Parvez Elahi became speaker of the Punjab Assemble and later Chief Minister. Bhatti rapidly rose to become Secretary to the Assembly in BS 21. His land holding in Phalia kept pace and also increased by leaps and bounds. Our mole swears this Wizkid has no qualifications whatsoever. A summary seeking approval for his appointment has reportedly been sent by the Ministry of Industries for the Prime Minister’s approval. Talk about appointing a cat to guard the milk.
A spokesman for the Punjab Agriculture Department declared on October 19, 2011 that wheat sowing in barani areas was underway. Farmers are also advised that wheat sowing in Punjab must be completed by Nov. 20. Every day’s delay after that translates into a loss of yield. This is commonly understood and every farmer knows this. Every farmer also knows that nitrogen fertiliser, urea, is in short supply. And what did the government do to address this? They waited until November to direct TCP to import 700.000 metric tons urea for the winter sowing season.
TCP expects completion of shipments by mid December. Even if this expectation is met, urea will not become available to growers before the end of December, by which time the wheat sowing season will have ended. Our beloved Prime Minister assured us the urea will be available by “the end of December”. Was he actually assuring black-marketers that they would once again make a killing?