Daily Times

Sir: The PPP government, during its three-year tenure, made some good as well as bad decisions. We must have the moral courage to appreciate the good ones and criticise the bad ones.

The bad decisions were: increasing the price of ordinary postage envelopes from Rs 4 to 8, a 100 percent increase, and this was approved in the cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Gilani. This decision was against the basic philosophy of the PPP’s founder Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto as it directly hurt the poor people who do not have access to virtually cost-free means of correspondence through the internet. Other aspects of the bad decision-making of the PPP could be inability to control inflation, improve the law and order situation and save the Indus delta, the sixth largest in the world.

Similarly, the PPP has taken some good decisions as well like the 18th Amendment, willingly transferring the president’s powers to the prime minister by making the latter chief executive in the real sense, to continue the fight against terrorism and, above all, to send a reference of ZAB’s judicial murder case to the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Nonetheless, the decision of NFC Award was no less than an eyewash manoeuvred by the ex-finance minister, Shaukat Tareen, but the government has been unduly getting its credit.

MOHAMMAD KHAN SIAL

Karachi