Prima facie, it was an odd topic of discussion at the PSX’s Top 25 Companies Awards, 2022 function. But Engro Chairman Hussain Dawood’s topic of discussion at the event where the nation’s captains of industry and commerce had convened, was truthfulness. Yes, the importance of telling the truth.
He did segue on to a short discussion – an allusion, really – to the hereafter. To some it would have seemed like a bit of tableegh, a staple at local function. Afterall, those who know Mr Dawood, also know he is a spiritual man.
Commonplace in the country, if not on top of one’s list of topics to be discussed at a business convention. But on second thought, one wonders…is the Engro chairman on to something? Perhaps one of the panacea that can fix the economy is a strong dose of plain ol’ telling the truth. Yes, honesty is the best policy for everyone, but if we were to look at the various trustworthiness indices compiled the world over, we would observe that countries faring well on those, also fare well on indices measuring the ease of doing business. Investors – both foreign and local – are more at ease. Yes, they do their due diligence, but also aren’t watching over their backs all the time for hustlers trying to pull a fast one on them.
But the importance of telling the truth in matters of the national economy transcends that of investor confidence. There’s also the issue of identifying our faults, failures and weaknesses and being dead honest about them. The web of lies that the powers that be spun around the corruption bogeyman, through that horseman of the apocalypse (NAB) is now known to all. All of the key individuals that proudly became its face during a previous regime are now trying to dissociate themselves. In fact, Dawood himself faced a bit of it during the supposed LNG ‘scandal’ that also got former premier Shahid Khaqan Abbasi behind bars.
The nation was also lied to in the Reko Diq case, where uninformed citizens were led to believe that an ungodly amount of minerals were being sold for a song because a foreign mining company presumably greased some government palms. Not only did that company seek international arbitration, which then slapped us with a massive fine, it also played a role in disrupting investor confidence in the country.
The national indifference to the truth doesn’t end there. As this week’s cover story for Profit shows, most of our governmental policy work is based on statistics that are simply not true to begin with!
Perhaps, away from the financial ratios and legalese discussed at business and economy conferences, we need to take a leaf out of Dawood’s book, and have a discussion on the oft-ignored topic of telling the truth.
