'SAPMs and advisers'

This is apropos a Business Recorder op-ed 'SAPMs & Advisers' carried by the newspaper yesterday.

I have a different view though. Firstly, you don't hire or appoint advisers or special assistants when they are in the prime of their careers. With the exception of former special assistant to prime minister, Dr Waqar Masood, who is a former federal finance secretary, both Tabish Gauhar and Nadeem Babar were not among the "retirees" per se. The writer has heaped a lot of praise on former adviser to prime minister, Dr Ishrat Husain. Dr Husain, no doubt, deserves such praise. But one must not lose sight of the fact that Dr Husain had already played his highly productive innings much before he joined the PTI government as an adviser to the prime minister. Last but not least, it is quite ironic that the incumbent government is still learning the ropes although it's now in fourth year of its five-year constitutional tenure.

Mushtaq Memon (Karachi)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021