Source: Daily Times

Zia-ul Haq showed the world to thousands of the country’s religious zealots in the eleven years that he ruled Pakistan, disproving the old adage that travel broadens the mind. His favourite fundos remained as immune to enlightenment as they always had been

Shaukat Aziz is now resting his feet in London, having set an all-time travel record that no future prime minister of Pakistan can hope to beat. He was out once a month, often to countries which had little to do with or for Pakistan. There really is very little need for our leaders to travel abroad unless it is business so urgent that it cannot be taken care of otherwise.

The president remained a distinct second to his hand-picked (or was it Paul Wolfowitz?) prime minister, travelling to country after country. How he missed Australia remains unexplained. Perhaps all will be revealed when he writes his second memoir that might be called Not in the Line of Fire or Hire. In the first couple of years of his rule, the president would travel by commercial flight. His party would include no more than a few members of his personal staff and a handful of officials.

He also initiated the commendable, though short-lived, practice of having media organisations pay for such of their representatives as they wished to travel with the president. I remember talking about it to his then — and now — press secretary Rashid Qureshi in New York and complimenting him on finally having discontinued a practice that was unfair to the taxpayer. Alas, no good thing lasts long, as no good deed goes unpunished, and it was no different this time around either.

The reversion to what had become standard practice began imperceptibly. What the Ministry of Information, which the nation hopes the incoming government will abolish once and for all, began to ship its favourite news people by putting cold cash in their hands and asking them to get to New York or Tokyo or wherever it was on their own. When droves of them began to appear in advance of or in the wake of the president’s arrival, it was hard not to stop and marvel at the new-found generosity of media owners and proprietors. But truth like murder has the unfortunate habit of coming out sooner than later. One slogan sums it all up: Long live Lifafa Journalism.

Before I move on from this particular skeleton in the government’s cupboard, I would like to add that the author of this brilliant scheme to rip off the taxpayer was Syed Anwar Mahmood, Sam to his fans.

The floodgates have remained open since. Not only did the size of the president’s entourage flourish like the Karachi Stock Exchange — and for the same reasons perhaps — but old Shortcut, not wishing to be seen settling for less, followed suit, only to excel his chief. There were so many foreign trips between the two of them that there were occasions when they are said to have run out of journalists to take. The size of the entourage also inflated like a balloon at a children’s party, with the difference that while balloons at children’s parties go pop, these ones, made of hardier material, continued to inflate. Between 2004 and 2005, between the two of them, they visited 46 countries.

The practice of taking large delegations at the taxpayer’s expense to other lands began with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. He once said that he wanted to expose his ministers and others to the world beyond Pakistan’s borders so that they would learn. Of course, the only thing they learnt was how to do the maximum shopping in the minimum time. And who could blame them! After all, when you returned home on a VVIP flight, you sailed through customs without declaring what your bags contained.

Sometimes it also worked the other way. I know — and so must some others — of a minister in an earlier government who more than once employed VVIP flights to carry Gandhara pieces and other antiques abroad. There were officials at specific Pakistan missions who helped move the stuff. But that is a story from another day and should remain secure with other skeletons in the national cupboard, except that we are soon going to run out of cupboard space.

Gen Zia-ul Haq did away with everything that his predecessor had put into place, except foreign travel with large entourages. Of course, only Mansura-cleared types were considered worthy to be included in his delegations. Zia-ul Haq showed the world to thousands of the country’s religious zealots in the eleven years that he ruled Pakistan, disproving the old adage that travel broadens the mind. His favourite fundos remained as immune to enlightenment as they always had been, not that their mentor and great patron minded.

Benazir Bhutto — may she rest in peace — in her two stints in office was equally footloose and travelled the world’s capitals with large delegations. I once called her Sinbad Jahazan, but the sweet-tempered person she was, she never held that against me. Nawaz Sharif also travelled and with the same king-size delegations that his predecessors had standardised. Will those who are soon to be in office make a break from the past? We shall see, but if experience is any guide, then one can safely assume that the tradition of extravagant and unnecessary travel at state expense will continue.

Before I close this I would like to offer the Sinbad Jahazi Medal to our undertaker prime minister, otherwise Chairman of the Senate, Mohammadmian Soomro and Speaker of the defrocked National Assembly, the Chaudhry from Sialkot — imposed on the nation curtsey Chaudhry Anwar Aziz — for having beaten all records, past and present, and even perhaps records to be, in foreign travel. Soomro, instead of staying at home to see the elections through was out much of the time, something that any civilised, law-abiding society would consider dereliction of duty. I think it will be a conservative estimate were it to be said that Soomro came to the United States on one excuse or another at least six times a year. What he did or why he came, he will have to explain one day when the comrades are able to put together a people’s court. As for the Speaker, he was more out of the National Assembly than he was in there.

Pass me some Alka-Seltzer, Mickey old boy.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent.

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Tags: Bhutto, Shaukat Aziz, Taxes, Taxpayers, Zia ul Haq