The Government of Pakistan, along with its four provincial governments, owns and maintains a carpool of 85,500 vehicles. His Majesty’s Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – a name so long it could fill a parking space on its own – makes do with 86.
The Government of Pakistan, along with its four provincial governments, has 3.2 million employees and 85,500 cars – that’s 37 employees per car. Thirty-seven human beings, sharing one vehicle. These are civil servants, not a clown car. The Government of Pakistan must buy more cars.
For the record, a standard car has four seat belts. This is not a suggestion; it is the law. By this iron logic, 3.2 million employees require 800,000 cars. The government currently has 85,500. The shortfall is 714,500 vehicles. This is not a political opinion. This is arithmetic.
The Government of Pakistan, along with its four provincial governments, spend roughly Rs114 billion a year on fuel. That is Rs9.5 billion per month, Rs30 crore per day or Rs2 lakh per minute. Every minute. While you read this paragraph, the government spent Rs2 lakh on fuel. While you read the next paragraph, another Rs2 lakh. Put the newspaper down. It is still spending Rs2 lakh on fuel.
Pakistan has 85,500 government vehicles. Britain has 86. To be precise: eighty-six. That is not a typo. That is not a rounding error. Pakistan, which inherited a corner of that empire, requires 85,500. Somewhere, a British civil servant is quietly eating a sandwich on a bus.
When the British left Pakistan in 1947, they took almost everything with them – the furniture, the silverware, all the good crockery. Apparently, they also took their philosophy on government vehicles. They have 86. We kept everything else and added 85,414 cars.
Red alert: If you stay on the ground, you share a car with thirty-six colleagues. If you rise high enough, you get the whole sky.
The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad. He tweets/posts @saleemfarrukh and can be reached at: [email protected]
