The Daily PakistanPolitics Oct 16-31, 2018

• Oct29-2018--another joke making the rounds...apparently the chinese ambassador said they were ready to provide one billion in the form of pants/trousers tobe sold at Pace if Imran Khan agreed to start wearing the pants in the family...!The chinese who are big clothes manufacturers have not been able to break into the pakistan readymade market...!
  
• Oct28-2018--The PTI has fallen back onto old tactics and appointed an Air Marshal to the PIA MD position...while air marshals are usually steadier they can hardly change much...it would be great if the pathetic lunch served by PIA is improved from say a bad bun keema to say a coffeeplanet club sandwich or even a subway sandwich...PIA just is not as good a cook as it used tobe...and at least dont allow airhostesses to change/adjust seats...!i am sure the airmarshal who was vice chief of airstaff is someones close friend perhaps Imrans or the defence ministers...!or even an army chief crony...!
  
• Oct28-2018--The 18th amendment which substantially increased provincial allocations from the center to around 2.1 trillion dollars is only supported by sindh at the moment as it leaves nothing for the centers development projects...while most of the 2.1 trillion goes to punjab it is now a foregone conclusion that the provincial allocations will have tobe halved to stabilize the countries growing fiscal woes...if the revenues are 5 trillion than around 2.3 trillion will have to go the provinces...The next NFC will have to create a stopgap valve so that provincial allocations can be reduced if the center faces an emergency...
  
• Oct28-2018--furore over the supposed attempt of an israeli plane to land at islamabad fueled by an israeli journalist...the mysterious trip happened a day before the israeli premiers visit to Oman where he and the Omani king are shown looking at a map...the map could be that of kashmir or palestine which are both occupied territories...israel officials previously visited Oman twenty years ago...the king of Oman says israel is acceptable as a regional state.
  
• Oct27-2018--The EU commission suggests that army should only have been appointed outside the polling stations...there was no need outside the polling stations as it is inside the polling station that elections actually face problems before and after polling...!however the PMLn chakris are uneasy with a threatening gun at the ready...! a lot of problems though are avoided...
  
• Oct27-2018--The Imran Khan government wants to give 20% to whistle blowers...!that is a bit like encouraging the corrupt who will probably report their own corruption if they can get another 200 million out of it...whistle blowers are usually provided protection and relocated not provided lifetime monetary support...!that also if they are reporting on a mafia...!
  
• Oct27-2018--the chinese ambassador in a meeting with the COAS said that "CPEC not adding to pakistani woes..." The COAS tongue tied because of a lack of economic expertise apart from spending, spending and spending...smilingly looked on...there have been reports that the army chief suggested that Imran Khan return the saudi funding...CPEC is a pakistani initiative while chinese funding is technically a chinese government initiative...The chinese had apparently made an offer to fund anything that the pakistani government could think off...while pakistan's loan woes are almost permanent since the Ayub Khan era and his PL480....the chinese current loan portfolio or money already used is around $22 billion of $65 billion in the pipeline...a casual and informal calculation suggests that just the interest on this loan will come to around rupees one trillion over 20 years starting in 2021...and the loans are already 24% of pakistans foreign loans..Repayments will come to around another Rs.4-8 trillion depending on the rise in the dollar value...! maybe we should remind the PTI government and the governor state bank of the horrifying picture if the dollar price surges over Rs.250 in 20 years time...The government should temper their love for foreign funds just by studying the problems that will arise in the future...some of the problems may have been caused by the army desire to purchase 48 chinese armed drones...!!In 2021 the chinese interest payments will be around $440 million and if you return $560 million...you will need to handover $1 billion to the chinese in 2021...
  
• Oct25-2018--Pakistans foreign loans total approx $94 billion...with another 6 billion from saudia the loans have reached the magic figure of $100 billion...$100 billion was thought tobe a threshold for pakistan which after pakistan would need massive retructuring and might be even default...!a sort of greece scenario...however our greenhorn primeminister instead is relieved...!not long ago he was bewailing the Nawaz Sharif loans...
  
• Oct25-2018--Donald Trump has started to display some intellect...he now says that MBS who technically rules Saudi Arabia must bear all the responsibility for killing Jamal Khashoggi who was apparently a relative of the famous arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi...many are looking at the possibility another King Salman son Khalid Salman being made crown prince and MBS being either kicked upstairs tobe king or retired to his palace...!
  
• Oct25-2018--the government is definitely against people using over 300 units of electricity as they had the heaviest burden in the Rs.145 billion in new electricity tariffs announced by the one must say the PTI pathetic government...maybe change will come after another three months...!fauj, industrialists and tubewell owners were dancing in the rain at getting literally windfall gains ...industrialists get electricity at Rs.9.75 and Rs11...tube wells at Rs5.35...army at Rs8...one does not know why the government is so against ordinary people who will have to pay a max of around Rs22 per unit...!one hardly thinks that is fair...the domestic consumers use only 30% of the electricity and they are ones most victimised...!pathetic and cruel to the extreme...maybe Imran Khan does not know of the lifestyles of bussinessmen, industrialists and major agriculturists...! wearing a torn kameez shalwar does not an intelligent man make methinks...!
  
• Oct24-2018--Saudis Arabia signed deals of $50 billion at its investment conference mostly with oil firms that are already involved in saudia arabia...Russia also showed interest in trying to get the Saudis to join their strategic group now that the USA is sitting on the fence...a typical occurrence in the middle east as Donald Trump shows his fright and reluctance at more conflicts...Donald Trump has run from most conflicts barring afghanistan...
  
• Oct24-2018--The SBP seems to hold the strange view that a higher dollar value viz the rupee will restrict imports...one wonders how imports mostly of essential items have reached $60 billion almost double the value of our exports..a higher dollar value is not essential as is apparent from exports of countries like india, bangladesh and thailand...bangladesh has almost $34billion in exports around double that of pakistan...exports are increased in niche products which one can produce productively...eg...we have a huge pharmaceutical industry but our exports are almost pathetic in that field...we should restrict our own use of wheat, cooking oil, rice and vegetables and export them...some of our fruits are of world quality we can sell them too...we import shimla mirch from iran...we should be able to grow it ourselves as well as onions and tomatos...
  
• Oct24-2018--Omar Ayub is basically a pathetic person to make minister of power...everyone in wapda and power companies steals electricity...the head of Pesco was accused by a state minister of stealing 10000 units of electricity monthly...but he was in fact promoted tobe NEPRra head...nobody really requires officials support for stealing electricity...you just have to be able to use a kunda...if some welder connects directly nobody actually is able to catch him...in wapda only 400 units was free for employees but they never ever got a bill for the extra electricity used...!
  
• Oct24-2018--Another musharaf ally benefits in the Imran Khan era...Ather Minallah who was a minister in the musharaf cabinet being made IHC CJ after removing of justice shaukat by the SJC for insulting the ISI...Justice Shaukat had said that the ISI interfered in the working of the judiciary after he gave an order to the ISI to clear road blocks in front of the ISI office in Islamabad...
  
• Oct24-2018--An unsteady Saudi Arabia reeling under the effects of the Khashoggi murder fell under the Imran Khan spell as he showed that they were the Saudis real friends and not the USA...The USA is regarded in the islamic world as only a fair weather ally...!the Saudis had refused to give Nawaz Sharif who was almost a Saudi stooge a similar amount souring relations...however they gave in because they thought the Pakistanis were in a monetary mess...they gave $3 billion for monetary support and $3 billion in deferred oil payments...The pakistanis were unable to give any gaurantees on a saudi offer for a refinery which was deffered...with Saudia almost under sanctions/seige from the west they obviously could not turn down Pakistan with threats looming of a US invasion...!while Pakistan would be hard put to contain a full fledged US invasion they could put up a defence and unnerve the US already troubled with numerous casaulties in the afghan quagmire...!many suggest in exchange pakistan could be moving two corps to Saudia to defend against a possible US invasion or strike...!
  
• Oct17-2018--The usually efficient ISI has been unable to clear the road in front of its office from encroachments...The CJ allowed them another month and suggested that they move their offices to a less public place...many reports suggest that the ISI was building an office inside the Margalla Hills...while terrorism has declined substantially strange security systems still exist outside places like military offices, major hotels and even some roads in islamabad which have concrete boulders to block traffic access and free movement...In Lalkurti the army chief has one road blocked while theh joint chiefs also had the adamjee road blocked...!
  
• Oct17-2018--ruckus in the punjab assembly as the PMLn protests
  
• Oct17-2018--In a major new twist to the New Pakistan theme...Fawad Choudhry suggests that it is going tobe a very expensive new pakistan rather than a socially fair new pakistan...he suggests unfairly to the people that the government is facing a loss of 1.2 billion daily and that will cause an increase in electricity prices...many feel that the loss is in governance expenses rather than electricity and the government is going to tax the poor and middle income earners at the cost of Imran Khan's rich class or biradri...! looking at the bill one finds that the average per unit cost is Rs20 as all taxes and strange surcharges are also collected by the government...it is not our fault that the cost of the Solar Power station is 17 rupees per units which is supposedly a maintenance and fuel free system...the government can easily reduce the cost of solar energy which should be no more than a few rupees per unit...the government should announce a force majeur or electricity disaster and cancel all electricity contracts with producers and negotiate new people friendly contracts reducing tariffs substantially...nowhere in this region are electricity tariffs so high...the government is already charging electricity fuel charges at cost and adding on electricity losses and some strange charges...so there must be some major thinking problem in the governments mind or attitude...!Asad Umar however announced major concessions to export industries worth billions of rupees which will obviously have to come out of the peoples pockets too...these subsidies are for sectors of exports that are already supposedly doing well...!subsidies such as concessions on LNG costs going into 100's of billions...allowing gas supplies to the industries in winter could reignite shortages in domestic supplies like a few years ago...
  
• Oct17-2018--Shahbaz Sharifs remand extended for fourteen days...NAB says that Shahbaz Sharif had not answered any questions upto now on the Ashania scheme...!shahbaz sharif seemed pleased at the punjab election results and many suggest that government's cruel attitude towards the people will result in negative consequences in the punjab...while the ashiana scheme was at best controversial in how it was being executed the PTI too is trying its best to create another controversy by giving supposedly free land to its english construction contractors...many suggest that the PTI is attempting to create a landgrab for the Imran Construction empire...? Others suggest that the army is attempting to get the contracts for Imrans Ashiana for its thousands of military contractors...!!