The advantages of having a commercially busy President

Ever since he entered the Presidency Mr. Asif Ali Zardari has been busy making visits to various countries abroad. In only a few cases these have been official visits as Pakistan’s President. Most other visits have been planned by he himself to strike deals and agreements that involve huge financial transactions at the time of materialization. His recent visit to China (overall his fourth within a year) has been dubbed as “successful” on the ground that various agreements with various companies were reached at, for construction of dams etc. The highest state official that President Zardari met during his four days in China (away from Beijing) was the Chinese Foreign Minister.
Should Pakistan be proud of a President who not only doesn’t mind acting as a Commerce Minister, an Irrigation Minister or a Trade Envoy, but in fact is overzealously keen to do so?
Because of his extraordinary skills to negotiate ‘commercial’ deals, Pakistan will soon be ‘benefiting’ hugely from the rented power-generating plants. Such ‘huge’ benefits are unlikely not to ‘flow’ into our economy because of our busy President’s keen interest in Commerce.
The world of trade and commerce is reputedly characterized by a lot of ‘wheeling-dealing’. And most stories of colossal corruption emerge and catch the public attention because of that. But that shouldn’t disturb us. The benefits of any wheeling-dealing that occurs at any level in any area, are certainly not going to go to India our enemy number one. These are going to stay with the sons of our soil. That should give us a lot of comfort.
One good thing about corruption is that it can’t occur without hectic commercial activity. And that hectic commercial activity is already been seen, and will continue to be seen because of our President’s passion for foreign tours. The other night he returned from China. But if you think he is resting in the Presidency, you are wrong. He flew promptly to Britain, where he is unlikely not to have some ‘worthwhile’ business to attend…
(This Column was first published on 27-08-2009)