There was a time when you could find intelligent people in Pakistan. In those early years after independence, bureaucrats knew everything about what they had to do. Federal and provincial ministers were knowledgeable about their subjects. Gradually there was deterioration in the quality of civil servants and nowadays I want to bang my head against the wall sometimes when dealing with brainless, dim-witted government officials whose only concern is how to make a million every day.
As usual, the rot began with Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who sacked 1300 able and devoted civil servants purely because they belonged to the Urdu-speaking community. He then appointed virtually illiterate people in governement. His finance minister was Dr. Mubashir Hassan, who knew nothing about economics (he was a civil engineer by profession).
Bhutto's daughter Benazir appointed an illiterate peasant as the principal of a school, a man who couldn't sign his own name. Benazir herself didn't know much about economics or even diplomacy (the president of the IMF once called her "a liar"). Her husband Zardari has gone a step further: he has appointed a woman as foreign minister who has majored in hotel management. Hina Rabbani Khar probably can't find Kashmir or Russia on a map, but she's been sent to India to hold talks with the foreign minister of that country.
Zardari has also appointed one of his friends (Dr. Asim) the minister for petroleum and natural resources. This man has run a hospital (where Zardari was hospitalized while in jail for eleven years), so he should have been made health minister. He proved that he's a nincompoop by saying that there's no law in Pakistan to deal with the rampant gas theft in the country. Now gas thieves will be even more encouraged to continue stealing gas. No wonder the country is in such a mess!
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