Ishaq Dar has seven lives

Fair & Square

Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar has seven lives as he has survived the juggernaut of NAB seven times. It was good to read a well-researched inside story according to which there are still some leaders in our political spectrum whose reputation has never been eclipsed given their fair and transparent ways despite the repeated piercing probes undertaken by NAB equipped with multiple tentacles. From the report, however, it is inferred that the probes - or seven probes - were more ill-intentioned as every time the experts, prosecutors and authorities on the subject wanted to close down the case for want of incriminating evidence, orders from ‘above’ desired that the matter be kept pending instead of being closed down. 

As far as my own impression about the FM goes, Dar’s is a case of living below the ostensible means. This impression is further reinforced by the latest story that talks about NAB’s Dar-specific ill intentions (the main one was that in their hearts, some NAB moguls wanted that someday Dar should be pressured to become an approver against Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif).

He is perhaps the only - or one of the very few - exceptions to our routine luxurious lifestyles in which living beyond the ostensible means is the established, favorite norm of all
 and sundry (ours is an exhibitionist society). For quite some time, I’ve been looking for people among different professions and various strata of the society who live below the ostensible means and I’d once conceived a write-up on this wild thought but I couldn’t succeed until I saw this comprehensive report written by a well-informed journalist that says it all. 

The report also relies upon the cash flow chart for the period 1985 till 1999 which shows that total income of Senator Ishaq Dar was somewhat around 60 million rupees whereas the expenditure was around 22 million. What can NAB laws or other laws of the land do anything about someone who knows no ostentation (or who lives below the ostensible means)? The majority people at the helm of affairs who live far above the ostensible means need to know this trick of the trade that can act as a permanent safety valve in their chequered careers. 

Going further into the report, it has been stated that NAB did its utmost to find out some non-transparency and hanky-panky in the businesses of Finance Minister, Senator Ishaq Dar, but it failed seven times. The question arises either the NAB is ill-equipped to trace the ‘state-of-the-art technicalities’ in the Dar-ian system or Mr Dar is really a contented person and, as such, un-catchable. 

  …mianrehman1@gmail.com