ANJUM ibrahim
Miftah of Candyland
“Miftah Ismail, the Special Advisor to the Prime Minister on Finance, recently stated…”
“You haven’t got his designation right! You missed out Revenue and Economic Affairs.”
“Thank you for correcting me, but for the life of me I can’t understand why these were added as normally Finance is enough. Incidentally do you have a sweet tooth?”
“I am not a businessperson or anyone whose taxes are being audited - I am a salaried individual whose income tax is cut at source so I don’t need a sweetner from the Special Advisor…”
“OK, but I know that you have a sweet tooth.”
“I don’t get it. Do you mean it literally?”
“Of course I mean it literally - Ismail belongs to the family that owns Candyland.”
“I see; you know when he was the Head of Board of Investment when Dar was still in the country Ismail used to have a bowl full of Candyland sweets but since he became the Special Advisor that bowl is gone!”
“Hey, if you are the head honcho you don’t need to give candy to any one, besides for all those dumb enough to reckon that he does not have complete authority let me once again point out his full designation, he is head honcho of Finance, and in the event that you reckon Revenue is not under his control, irrespective of the long hours being put by the Advisor on Revenue, Haroon Akhtar Khan, our worthy Shahid Khaqan Abbasi - our SKA as opposed to the Saudi crown prince MBS added Revenue as well and then those ministers who may have been challenged by Ismail, SKA added Economic Affairs as well…”
“Right, but he still falls short of his predecessor’s power… Dar chaired 50 plus committees and was the de facto deputy prime minister. Besides SKA is not yet the heir apparent so stop comparing him to MBS.”
“But Dar didn’t have a sweet tooth I hear, he had a sour tooth – always sour he was and was attracted to sour people, turncoats really and…”
“But you know SKA as I said yesterday is a Three Times man, and so he gave Ismail three epithets…. SKA himself is the prime minister, the minister for energy and the chair of the economic coordination committee so…”
“I get it, but anyway Ismail is in Washington DC attending the World Bank/IMF annual meeting and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s choozas (baby chickens) cause they simply have no experience say that he has gone to get another loan! I mean these choozas really need to consider an obvious fact: Ismail wants as much publicity as he can get because he knows he is a one-time head of finance and wants to enjoy all perks and privileges and attending the annual meeting is a perk and a privilege; besides no one discusses loans during these meetings.”
“Indeed.”
