PARTLY FACETIOUS: They must take governance courses, maybe they would learn

“I propose that the subject titled governance, relatively new if one considers other centuries old subjects like physics and math be dropped and…”

“Not happening my friend. Anyway how long has governance been offered as a subject in universities? And which entity popularized this concept?”

“Well a bunch of multilateral bureaucrats popularized the concept, and I am referring to entities like the International Monetary Fund, World Bank…”

“We have a retired multilateral bureaucrat as our finance minister and markets have reacted not quite enthusiastically to her appointment…”

“Hey we have also hired serving as opposed to retired international bureaucrats so let her be.”

“Indeed so what are you trying to say?”

“Please learn some lessons, please. To think that all previous stakeholders made mistakes while the incumbent batch…”

“Careful, remain positive. Going back to governance I reckon it was popularized by these international lending agencies because the percentage of failures of their projects and programmes was rising so the out of the box thinking was to blame it on poor governance.”

“Don’t be facetious.”

“I am being serious, Pakistan is on its twenty fourth IMF programme with the Stand-By Arrangement, and we still hear of governance issues and…”

“Our governance is poor – our corruption rates are high, very high, appointments are based on political loyalties which miraculously change as the electables realize that their previous loyalty was misplaced to put it mildly, we staff all government institutions and state owned entities with our people and…”

“Stop for your sake, anyway back to governance I propose that all members of the executive and all other stakeholders take governance courses, maybe they would learn…”

“Didn’t happen in other countries including Pakistan and isn’t likely to happen here. I would suggest another subject: humility.”

“Interesting, and that may lead to the acknowledgement that intent is distinct from capacity and no one has capacity to deal with all subjects!”

“Right and teaching staff would be university professors, more specifically history professors who will deal exclusively with how to learn lessons from past events to ensure a more informed decision making process and…”

“What about representation from mosques – you know to manage the threat of sectarian conflict?”

“Hey don’t multi-task, one small step at a time and…”

“Neil Armstrong the first astronaut on the moon said this is one small step for man and a giant step for mankind.”

“So I guess a mandatory subject for senior members of the three pillars of government must be humility, so a small step for them but a giant step for Pakistan.”

“You are funny.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023