Five Minutes to Midnight
The Punjab CM, Mr Shahbaz Sharif, and the Federal Finance Minister, Senator Sartaj Aziz, air-dashed to Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia this week in a desperate effort to get funds so as to keep the country from defaulting. The Nawaz Sharif regime inherited US $ 300 million only in foreign exchange reserves in early 1997 but had raised them to US$ 1.3 billion in about 18 months, the imposition of emergency on May 28 and the deep freeze of all foreign currency accounts changed all that. In the face of sanctions a temporary measure could have been overlooked by the investing public but when it became apparent that the Government was dead serious in wanting to Rupee-fy the deposited US dollars at the official rate, the public confidence rapidly eroded. Since then a rather erratic course has been followed with disastrous consequences.
