Tweeting for 2.5 million? PCB social media manager among those gifted by PM

Each member of the winning Champions Trophy squad is set to be presented cheques worth Rs 10 million by the Prime Minister in a special ceremony scheduled for July 5. The move has been met with criticism from certain quarters questioning the reason to give out a crore to every player in the squad. But given the stellar performance put up by the boys in the tournament, the move was met with a general sense of approval.

And while the public mood is still up in the clouds enough for the decision to be met with vigorous nods of approval, there are some things which are astounding. According to documents made available to Pakistan Today, while the 15 member squad are getting Rs 10 million each, there is also a ‘category B’ list of 13 people involved in the Pakistani delegation to the tournament that will receive Rs 5 million from the Prime Minister on July 5.

The category B list consists of some genuinely deserving people that are often sidelined from the spotlight and not given their due. Team manager Talat Malik, Coaches Mickey Arthur, Grant Flower, Azhar Mehmood, Grant Trafford, physiotherapists masseurs and other management staff have undoubtedly played vital roles off the field deserving of gratitude and recognition. There are however certain names on the category B list that irk one’s sensibilities.

Raza Rashid, the PCB media manager, and Aun Zaidi, the social media manager of the PCB are both part of the group of people getting 5 million from the Prime Minister for the Champions Trophy win. The role of the social media manager is handling the Facebook accounts of the Pakistan Cricket Team and twitter handle of the PCB. And while it can be expected for professional coaches to get such benefits, it is more than a little unnecessary for social media managers, media managers and security in-charges to be getting such opulent sums for doing what is essentially a job completely inconsequential to the performance of the team in the field, that it would create precedent for the PM to give cash prizes to the entire nation for supporting the team in the match. The Prime Minister’s office seemed to realise this much later as they made a second notification in which they cut in half the awards for all in the category B list other than the coaches and the team manager.

What still remains, however, is the fact that the Prime Minister is giving Rs 2.5 million to men handling facebook accounts, and making sure the buses players travel on are not death traps. 2.5 million is an amount so lavish it is often more than what professionals get as golden handshakes or retirement bonuses. It is for many people belonging to middle class backgrounds a lifetimes worth of savings and investments. Even decision to cut down the reward came only in the wake of fast bowler Wahab Riaz only getting 5 million for his reduced role in the tournament.

And while Wahab’s remaing 5 million might have been given as a separate cheque signed in the name of his ankle, one can expect more scrutiny to be made when public money is spent.