The Grapevine October 2014

Few bureaucrats never experience the autumn in their career. Nargis Sethi is one of them who got the title of Pakistani ‘Condoleezza Rice’ due to her ‘unlimited powers’ during previous PPP regime. Surprisingly, she remains a blue-eyed bureaucrat now in the PML-N government too. Sethi, Secretary Water and Power also drawing a lucrative package of Rs 1.4 million as the CEO of Pakistan Power Park Management Company (PPPMCL) – the position she was bestowed upon by the Nawaz-led government when she was holding the portfolio of secretary EAD in January this year. After assuming the charge of Secretary Water and Power, Sethi also became the chairperson of BoD of PPPMCL but till today she has never quit the CEO post and attached benefits.

Governor Punjab Chaudhry Sarwar misses no opportunity in media to give sermons on merit, rule of law and true spirit of democracy citing his experiences and observation as MP of the British parliament. But contrary to his honeyed talks he feels no hesitation in calling different government high-ups for undue favours for his buddies. Recently he pressurized the foreign office for granting one-year extension in posting to a chap (Saqlain) working at Pakistani High Commission in Glasgow. Sources say that the said official had already spent more than standard posting tenure in the charming city.

‘We are not cowards and are not afraid of Taliban’ is the claim of PML-N leaders. They say actions speak louder than words. You will be wondering where is Captain Safdar (yes the son-in-law of PM Sharif) as no one has watched him on any forum except on the floor of the National Assembly for many months. Little bird tells us that he had taken oath before his father-in-law that he will never step outside the PM house as the government had credible information about ‘threats’ to him. He can go, yes according to permission of PM Sharif, only to attend NA and nowhere else under any circumstances.

What magic he possesses is the question that bothers many. The answer knows no one but the fact of the matter is that the man – Javed Malik – who served as Ambassador at Large during PPP government on ‘unknown credentials’ is now getting around 4-5 hundred thousand from the PML-N government for doing his ‘job’ as PM’s Special Envoy for Overseas Investment and Trade though he and the ‘government-of-principles’ claim that he is voluntarily working. This is as bad as was the appointment of an optician – Nasir Ali Khan – as the Ambassador at Large by former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.