Elsie is Not a Girl
Unlike most nations where individuals excel in some discipline or the other, Pakistan has been blessed with professionals of world comparison but we do not seem to recognize this varied excellence. It would be nice from time to time to eulogize our own potential. Which other country can boast pilots and doctors of world compare in such large numbers, or for that matter, bankers? Even in sports, hockey and squash we ruled the world for quite some time, in cricket we have (and have had) the best individual players. Many of today’s top airlines in the Middle East and Asean made their beginnings on the strength of PIA’s airline management staff, pilots and engineers, two of the largest hotel chains in the world began with PIA’s participation. Let us recognise Air Marshal Nur Khan’s initiative in most of these fields of excellence.
Agha Hasan Abedi turned Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) into one of the leading banks of the world. The institution remained very much synonymous with the personality of its maker. The seamy side in the Bank’s operations may have suited special clients but without Agha Sahib’s constant monitoring the whole system had a tendency to explode in the face of its investors and it did. With bad legal advice and gung-ho activists in collecting “private deposits”, BCCI became vulnerable (So-called Black Network, 30 July 91 THE NATION) and thus targeted for extinction. Big money transactions are commonplace in every large international bank (there being a very tenuous fail-safe line with respect to money laundering), BCCI was singled out for punitive action and a dream based on Pakistani professional competence was brought to an end (The Collapse of a Dream, 30 July 91, THE NATION) with the reputation of Pakistani bankers in shreds, or was it? Pakistani banking professionals continued to excel in other international banks, particularly Citibank (The Banking Professionals, 15 Oct 91 THE NATION). Our present Finance Minister, Mr. Shaukat Aziz, is on leave of absence as Head of “Private Banking” in Citibank, the largest conglomerate in the world, formed by a merger of Citibank and Travellers Group. Habib Bank’s Shaukat Tarin, UBL’s Zubyr Soomro (both Citibank) and NBP’s Mohammadmian Soomro (Bank of America), all left US$ one million plus (Rs.5 crore plus in today’s Pakistani Rupees) salary packages abroad when they were motivated to return to Pakistan in 1997. And this when not counting their bonuses in preferred stocks which ran into millions more! Under very trying political circumstances, all three have been very successful in bringing the nationalised commercial banks (NCBs) back from virtual extinction. In comparison Allied Bank, run by the old crowd, has been a virtual role model for corruption, inefficiency and nepotism of the worst kind. Messrs Tarin, Soomro and Soomro’s virtuoso performance was achieved by assembling a bunch of Pakistani professionals in the banking industry from abroad, almost all of whom were persuaded to leave secure jobs at the call of their country. As financial compensation they opted for less than 20% of what they were getting abroad. Worst off was probably Mr Moinuddin Khan, who resigned as Head of Standard Chartered in Hong Kong, to come as Chairman Central Board of Revenue (CBR). Faced with public criticism at his “high salary” in Pakistan and the foreign exchange crisis post-May 28, 1998 he opted to work without salary, living off his savings. The moment he started to give sleepless nights to the “fat cats”
