Be frugal: Don’t behave like Arabian Sheikhs

No sooner did Imran Khan touch the raw nerve of the rulers in Islamabad by pointing out that a whopping 43 crore of rupees are being spent out of taxpayers’s money on the renovation of the private residence of the prime minister in Murree on the pretext that SAARC conference would be held there than the information minister denied it by saying that this amount has been earmarked for the face-lift of the Governor House Murree and not for the prime minister’s private residence in Murree. Even if this colossal amount is being spent on the Governor House Murree it still cannot be justified on any score.
The SAARC conference can be conveniently held at Islamabad where sufficient physical infrastructure containing all essential facilities for holding high level meetings and making the stay of the foreign participants quite comfortable exist. What is the big deal in assembling the participants of the proposed meeting at Murree for the purpose? We are in financial straits and are depending on foreign loans to run our country, therefore, we need to save every penny. Our rulers shouldn’t behave like Arabian kings and sheikhs of the Emirates. We haven’t found oil as yet in Pakistan.
Every ruler in this country makes a promise with the nation at the hustings that he would bring down non-developmental expenditure if he comes to power. This promise was never kept by any one. There are many forms of corruption and one of them is lavish expenditure on one’s style of living out of taxpayers’money. It is a pity that the role models of most of our leaders have been persons like Abbaside king Haroon Rashid or the present Sheikhs of the Middle Eastern countries and not persons like Imam Khomeni, Mao Ze Dong, Castro, Mahmood Ahmadinijad, Chou-en-Lai, Nelson Mandela and leaders of their ilk who had one thing in common and that was their frugal way of life.
POSTSCRIPT : It is just possible that by the time these lines see the light of day, Pakistan’s former ace batsman Mohammad Yousaf might have taken over as new batting coach of the upcoming Afghanistan’s cricket team. He will be a good replacement of Inzam-ul-Haque who has been appointed as chief selector by the PCB.