Sum Total Loss

The rumblings that Pakistan is heading toward as amicable as possible settlement, given the grounds realities of the court-aborted RekoDiq mining agreement has moved Asif Zardari, the former president of Pakistan, and inheritor-chairperson of Pakistan Peoples Party, to call Nawaz Sharif, the three times former prime minister and forever-sublime leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

Since learning, yet unofficial accounts of the expected agreement, Zardari has been unbale to leave his recliner, loaded-up ashtrays pileup around him, while soothing lullabies are wafted from the lips of party minions like MNA Sherry Rehman, a former ambassador, Sindh minister for women development Shehla Raza, and MNA Dr. Nafisa Shah (daughter former Sindh chief minister Qaim Ali Shah), MPA Sharmila Farooqi – whose father freely shortchanged Pakistan Steel Mills, former federal foreign minister Hina Rubani Khar, Senate parliamentary affairs standing committee chair and leadership inheritor Sassui Palijo, and Alizeh Iqbal Haider, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s spokesperson, who inherited her father Iqbal Haider’s parliamentary seat.

The one who considers himself the wadera-in-chief of waderas, cannot reconcile with himself that he did not have access to a multibillion-dollar opportunity.

The inconsolable Zardari, in state of delirium, has been screaming nonstop: wastrel… Imran… wastrel. In between breathers, he murmurs: ‘My kids won’t ever make such mistakes.’

He has been reduced to this state upon hearing that Pakistan has negotiated with the Tethyan Copper Company (TCC), which holds $5.976 billion decree in its favor, when the Pakistani supreme court voided their mining contract.

All appeals were exhausted and TCC was moving towards seizure of Pakistan government’s assets abroad.

Finally, Zardari had been persuaded by his soothers to call Nawaz to share his grief.

“Nawaz, did you hear about this TCC thing… an utter mess… wastrel… Imran… wastrel…”

“Yes… yes, my brother Asif. Imran is a super wastrel. He is getting the entire $6 billion fine written off. No fine. Plus, Pakistan will get 50% of the profits instead of previously negotiated 25%...”

“Nawaz, you know if I was there, I would have gotten a much better deal. Like negotiated to pay them $3 billion, but $1 billion going to my Swiss account. And their $4 billion difference could have been offset by setting Pakistan’s share at 25%, while 20% coming to my Virgin Islands account…”

“Yes, my brother Asif, this means TTC getting 55% to take home… I see your brilliant accounting… I wish, we had a go at it… in 1993, my government ended on July 18 and Balochistan’s then caretaker chief minister Naseer Mengal, granted exploration rights to for the entire Chagai on July 23…”

“You are right, Nawaz… Benazir took over in October… how to stop this going through? You know that place has the world’s fifth largest copper and gold deposits…”

“Dear brother Asif, now you have bagged both Nawab Sanaullah Zehri and Lt-Gen (retd.) Abdul Qadir Baloch from our party… in fact, our entire party there had defected. You remember how the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) was midwifed overnight and it replaced the PML-N at the top in Balochistan? Zehri was our man. Now you have it. So, it is my right to bag his political rival, Sardar Akhtar Mengal.”

“But my dear Nawaz, we have to unseat this nincompoop Imran… he has no thought at all of his seven generations to come…

“Dear Asif, you rightly call him a wastrel… he sees no need for real estate in London, nor in Paris or New York. [Former finance minister] Ishaq Dar told me that the mines have an estimated mine life of 56 years. We could get funds from it for a few dozen generations.”

“Nawaz, I say let’s move the high courts against this deal. Like you own the high courts in Punjab, and I have them in Sindh. Like this Ravi Project being declared unconstitutional by the Lahore high court, is landmark decision. I mean the judges only singled out this project for using agricultural lands… never mind how the city grew so large…”

“Asif, what! You didn’t hear the latest shock? The Supreme Court has suspended the beautiful high court order and has allowed Imran Khan to resume work. Here’s goes another bird out of our… I mean, my hand.
“Dear friend, it is a sum total loss for both of us. Looks like even our beloved… err, the money lubricated ones in the media can’t help us. Asif, you should go to America and use your lobbying expertise to free Pakistan of this wastrel, so we can lay hands on the treasury again.”