“I find it amazing that people just don’t know how much leverage they have.” “Does Muhammad Aurangzeb…”
“Oh, that reminds me there have been many additions to the GSCs…”
“GSC?”
“Group of Selected Cabinet members, irrespective of the narrowing fiscal space and irrespective of the arrival of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) team…”
“Our coalition governments work under severe pressures to increase the number of cabinet numbers.”
“Indeed they do – but usually they are appointed by the executive but this time around those selected by the stakeholders have reached a historical high.”
“See a revolutionary change is in the air, which this country has needed for decades and that is what is on the table.”
“That’s true, but one question: is it the Ramazan Sehri table or the Ramazan iftaari table or a party table or…”
“Don’t be facetious anyway, that’s not what I was referring to when I said that people don’t know how much leverage they have.”
“Well, if you were referring to the leverage our finance minister has, then he has a lot domestically but not too much with the IMF.”
“The guy is fully aware of what leverage he has where – he raised current expenditure by 21 percent this year, he raised taxes on the salaried, thereby reducing the take home pay to levels that…”
“Look at the glass as half full. Lavish iftaaris and sehris are not good for health, so it’s better to cut down on these items in any case.”
“Right, and he has accepted all IMF conditions of passing on the buck to the poor and…”
“I heard he transferred a senior official, a woman at that, who refused to put up the holder for a flag on the car that was appropriated to take him to Peshawar – a car from those that Customs had appropriated for non-payment of tax.”
“So?”
“So that’s not…not…”
“Think leverage, my friend – he had the leverage, and he used it, I reckon it was probably some bureaucrat more loyal than to the king.”
“And who is the King?”
“A constitutional King like King Charles, Shehbaz Sharif.”
“Right, but anyway way when I referred to leverage I was actually referring to the meeting of European leaders and their support for Zelensky. The German Chancellor who attended has been voted out, and the French president’s popularity is way down, probably as low as that of the British Prime Minister…”
“Domestically they do not represent the majority of their people, but I think what is even sadder is that Trump does not support them, so the coalition of the willing (CoW) wasted their taxpayers’ money….”
“I would translate CoW as Coalition of the Witless.”
“Hmmmm.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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