Partly Facetious: SRB challenging SBP data

"Welcome to the Naya (new) Pakistan."

"You being facetious?"

"Absolutely; and I was referring to the Sindh Revenue Board (SRB) challenging the State Bank of Pakistan's (SBP's) data - and need I add, this is the very first time SBP data has been challenged though Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) data is almost routinely challenged."

"God bless our top most tomato buyer Hafeez Sheikh, as finance minister he has focused on the work of PBS and either he changes the weightage to get better data and if memory serves me right he was also angered during his previous avatar due to the release of data when he was negotiating with multilaterals."

"He has already negotiated with multilaterals this time around, but I would like to tell you of a basic economic principle: if you buy in bulk then the price is lower and I heard Sheikh bought tomatoes in bulk and so he paid 17 rupees to a kilo rather than over 200 rupees to a kilo..."

"How much did he buy in bulk?"

"I don't know, he could have bought for all the safeway houses in the country."

"Hmmm, or maybe he went with his entire team, you know Hammad Azhar, Shabbar Zaidi, Firdous Ashiq Awan, and the vegetable shop, not registered to pay tax, cited the rate for tomatoes."

"Don't be facetious; anyway negotiations with the Fund are over but don't forget there is the second review, and then the third, and then the.

"I get it, but what I wanted to highlight was that the SRB has challenged SBP data and this is the first."

"Well, the SBP profits which have been used by our finance ministers to plug in their fiscal deficits have been unrealistic."

"Right, but I don't think any other data has ever been challenged."

"I hereby congratulate the Governor of the SBP - I had thought he simply doesn't deign to look at data compiled by SBP officials while setting the discount rate or indeed the rupee dollar parity..."

"How dare you, don't you know he has sacrificed his pay in dollars from the Fund and his career..."

"I don't think salary and perks of Governor SBP are any less then what he may have been getting as Resident Representative of the Fund and the prestige and the job openings after he finishes his current term..."

"In dollars?"

"Absolutely."

"Well, at least he won't suffer a decline in his purchasing power in Pakistan."

"Amen."