An Ode for Mr. Ishaq Dar, the World Bank and the IMF
Attention Mr. Ishaq Dar, the IMF and the World Bank.
we paid $37.2 billion as debt-servicing alone in the last eight years. This is many times more than the principal amount that we borrowed during this period.
An Eye Opener by Mr. Naeem Sadiq
Dear Bank
Naeem Sadiq
TheNews
Friday, July 12, 2013
Many thanks for the $5.3 billion loan. One small step for a bank, a giant leap for a chronic borrower. I can proudly claim that my debt, steadily rising every year, has now reached $66.17 billion. This would mean that every member of my family must cough out $366 to repay this loan. This can only happen if we all stop eating, drinking – in fact living – for the next 10 months. Is that what they also call collective suicide? I made sure not to consult my unenthusiastic family, on whose behalf these loans were taken. They never seem to agree with my lifesaving – or should I say death-delaying? – initiatives. You too must be equally ecstatic. After all you end up gaining the most. You will retain most of this amount as repayment of the earlier loan, while my unflinching yearly debt-servicing will keep you charmed for a long time to come.
You had raised a number of questions before you approved the loans. Why is it that despite such massive borrowing, my family shows no signs of getting any better? Why are 50 percent of the family members illiterate and 60 percent below poverty level? Why are half the children out of school? Why is there no electricity half the time? Why does no one in the family have access to clean tap water?
You also wanted to know the reasons for the striking disparity in the lifestyle of some other members of our family. They move about with armed guards in obscenely large vehicles (often smuggled), live in luxury homes, have properties and cash stacked in foreign lands and drink corporate soda or water only from those neat-looking plastic bottles. It is only this segment of the family that is forever pushing for more loans. They are the ones who justify the bank’s slogan of ‘poverty alleviation’ – since this is the only group whose poverty gets truly alleviated.
My sixth sense tells me that you already know the answers to all these questions. You were merely going through the motions, filling forms, giving an impression of officious formality and appropriateness. The fact that I earn little, waste a lot and pilfer the most, makes me an ideal customer for the sort of business you are in. I have learnt to plead my case by closely studying beggars who flock the streets of Karachi during the holy month of Ramazan every year. I use exactly the same techniques with only three minor variations – dress, language and location.
Now, some bad news for you. My entire family, except those very few who gained the most from your loans, got together last night to say that they would no longer tolerate being pushed into this bottomless cesspool.
When I gave them your message that they needed to tighten their belts, they said they were too poor and did not have any belts to tighten. They said they were fed up of the loans taken on their name – the loans that make the elite of the family get richer and have still more fun. The mounting loans have made them poorer than before and taken away the last shreds of dignity that covered their half-naked bodies. Getting crumbs like 0.8 percent for health and 1.8 percent for education made them still more unhealthy, and yet more uneducated.
In simple words, my family has decided not just to stop seeking any further loans but to also stop any further debt-servicing. An unemployed maths teacher in my family spent some time to calculate that we paid $37.2 billion as debt-servicing alone in the last eight years. This is many times more than the principal amount that we borrowed during this period.
We are absolutely sure that there is no law that can force us to close our schools, starve our children, privatise our resources and abandon our welfare, simply because our selfish elders borrowed huge sums on behalf of those who cannot even spell the word ‘loan’ or have ever seen a bank from the inside.
Having paid off the principal amount several times over, we have a good reason to ask for total debt cancellation and an immediate freeze on any further debt-servicing. Do you realise that discovering a new mode of dying – by getting trampled while struggling to receive free food donations – speaks volumes about the poverty that your loans have been able to alleviate?
Sincerely,
Issac.dare@gmail.com
naeem sadiq
twitter : @saynotoweapons
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How the state promotes crime and militancy. Look at the yearly average for prohibited bore licenses (PB) and non prohibited bore licenses (NPB) issued in last 10 years to the rich and powerful, to friends and relatives and to party men and criminals.
Yearly average of PB licenses, from 2003 to 2007………361
Yearly average of PB licenses, from 2008 to 2012 ………13895
Yearly average of NPB licenses, from 2003 to 2007………15261
Yearly average of NPB licenses, from 2008 to 2012 ………240494
Ref: official info obtained by using FOI and SC Suo moto case 16/2011
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