Laments for a Pakistani Mahatir -Dr Pervez Tahir

But this is also an admission that the charge is not capital flight but its end-use. If the intention was to control capital flight, then the time for it was some eight months ago in the form of capital controls of the type imposed by Malaysia during the East Asian crisis. Malaysia was the only country which declined support from IMF's emergency financing mechanism. It was the only country to have weathered the storm successfully. Incidentally Pakistan is seeking IMF support from the same window.

If capital flight was the issue, then the finance adviser had hinted at a cartel of banks. The issue has since been buried under his "un-dead" body. The State Bank, the regulator, did not think much of it. The State Bank also regulates and monitors the money changers on an almost daily basis. Despite better expertise and frequent contact, it did not see the smoking gun that the adviser on interior and his infant economic crime wing noticed.

A victory of sorts has already been declared by the boast in a press conference the other day that the rupee is beginning to rise. A "confession" seems to have been extracted that, if released, the accused will bring the rupee up to Rs72 a dollar. The slight rise in the rupee has something to do with the rise in interest rate and the expectation of their continuing rise in the IMF directed quest to close the gap between core inflation and a nominal interest rate. The accused will have no problem attracting the money back with such high interest rates. Reportedly, the accused have also offered to redeem the Eurobond falling due next month. This is not new either. These real friends of Pakistan have always helped in past emergencies as well. But they never get the red carpet reserved for donors.