Assurances and realities

THE inevitable is happening. Having raised everyone’s hopes of some sort of massive dollar inflow under the so-called Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), the government is now stealthily trying to walk some of those expectations back. Members of the business community were told “$25 billion are there for the taking” at a meeting. But now we are finding out that what looked like $25bn from a distance was not really anything quite so grand. On Tuesday, the government gave a briefing to the press about the SIFC proposal, during which Jehanzeb Khan of the Planning Commission, was quoted as saying the following: “The $70 billion is not an abstract figure, as it has been backed by assurances from other countries”. This is classic civil service spin. An “assurance” is an “abstract figure” when it comes to money matters Mr Khan. Money does not exist till it does. Until then it is an abstraction only.