Federal Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal has come up with a suggestion that the common man should have less tea. He explained that this would help reduce the import bill. If this is a serious suggestion, it should be countered with some serious questioning about who let him into the federal Cabinet. Indeed, the questioning should extend to who granted him his various degrees, of which he seems inordinately proud. If not serious, it seems a case of rubbing salt into the wounds of the common man, who is not only being battered by increasing inflation, but has now got salt rubbed into their wounds. Mr Iqbal’s misplaced levity is even more of a surprise because he is a veteran who has never before shown signs of such misplaced humour. He has the Planning portfolio, has held Interior, and been an MNA since 1998, and is presently Secretary-General of the PML-N.
During the PTI government, federal minister Ali Amin Gandapur once attempted to defend rising sugar prices by saying that people should consume less sugar for the health benefits. Mr Gandapur was the kind of minister Mr Iqbal used to point at, to show how badly the PTI was running the government. If the whole purpose of the coalition building, the no-confidence motion, and PTI long marches was merely to replace Mr Gandapur’s vacuity by Mr Iqbal’s inanity, even PTI opponents would have to wonder if the change was worth it.
This is a government that came to power ahead of a general election, by overthrowing the sitting elected government, precisely because of the economic situation. Since taking the reins into its own hands, the government has presided over a continual decline of the rupee, and its main response has been to increase the price of petrol by Rs 60 per litre in a week. True, the previous PTI government may have artificially lowered petrol prices by an unsustainable subsidy, but there is no need for remarks which merely mock the citizen for the economic woe that apparently have no end in sight.
