(Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. Learn to take a joke; you’ll live longer.)
“Eureka!” shouted federal finance minister Asad Umar as he barged into a meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Federal Cabinet. “I’ve got it! By God, I’ve got it!”
“We have gotten a central bank, right,” he asked the federal secretary of the revenue division. “And that regulates the banks, organises the annual SBP vs SECP cricket match and….ta da….has a printing press that prints money!”
“In fact, all the money that we have right now in our wallets was printed at that very same printing press of the SBP in Karachi,” he continued excitedly. “Because countries need currency as legal tender and it is the job of the central bank to print that money.”
“Okay, are you with me till here? Okay, now, hold on now, because this is going to get a little complex,” he said. “What if we ask the SBP to straight-up print a lot of that money?!”
“We can pay back ALL of our foreign debt, splurge on health, education and, of course, defence! We won’t even have to go to the IMF!”
The meeting came to an abrupt and sad end when the federal secretary for finance, after hearing the minister’s bold new plan, opened the window of the fourth-floor ECC board room of the Q Block at the federal secretariat and jumped out in an apparent suicide.
“It is really sad and inexplicable what Qayyum Saheb did, may he rest in peace,” said Asad Umer, speaking to reporters at the funeral at the H-8 graveyard in Islamabad.
“In any case, coming back to the plan, I have gotten a good feedback from all stakeholders, including our friends in Rawalpindi, whose only objection was that all of the extra printed money should go to debt servicing and defence, not health or education.”
