Late Syed Faridullah Shah was a very senior bureaucrat. Visibly perturbed over the extravagant life style of those who move in the corridors of power in this country, he once narrated to me this anecdote. It was early days after the creation of Pakistan. In the then NFWP there was a tiny cabinet of only six persons including its CM. There were only five official vehicles available in the government vehicles pool. One had been earmarked for use by the CM. The question arose as how to distribute the remaining four among the five ministers.
There wasn’t enough money in the government coffers to buy a new car so the ministers evolved a unique system of getting round the issue. They decided that if any one of them felt the need to tour the other ministers won’t leave the headquarter during the period when he was on tour and they will go on visits outside the headquarter turn by turn in case of need In this way they faced this issue for good one year till a car was purchased after the finances of the province improved. It was during Zia’s era when a senior executive of the World bank looking at the costly chandeliers hanging in the rooms of the Presidency sardonically said now I understand where our loans are spent in this country. late Prince Phillips, husband of late Queen Elizabeth was very outspoken person.
He was on a visit to Pakistan On seeing an eight door big limousine which a protocol officer of the Foreign office had taken to Islamabad airport to receive and fetch him to the presidency. He said’ Oh you still use such cars! We had discarded their use in our country long ago.
President Ishaque Khan didn’t allow his son to go to Blue area Islamabad for a private work in the official car when he was chairman. Senate and asked him to hire a private taxi for it.
Can any one think of such a level of austerity and parsimony on the part of those who move in the corridor of power in this country which seems to have gone with the wind long ago.
