Visiting VVIPs on charitable missions
MANY top persons in authority and prominent non-officials have visited Pakistan following the Sept 11 trauma and its lethal fall-out in Afghanistan. Among the distinguished persons who came to Karachi was Madam Mariapia Farfani, who brought substantial relief supplies for the Afghans on behalf the Together for Peace Foundation that she heads in Italy.
The famous former Italian president’s wife was accompanied by Princess Pagnetelli from Rome, the highly-decorated Farfani had a chest-ful of decorations for the excellent social work she had done. The colours on her coat showed that in full measure.
She has the right connections here. Writer Tehmina Durrani, former wife of Mustafa Khar, is linked to her and Farfani has good contacts with Maulana Edhi and he accompanied her on her trip to Kandahar. Apart from the relief supplies she had brought, she had $20,000 in cash for distribution to the poor in Kandahar, and she was anxious to ensure they were not looted before she gave them away. She did succeed in distributing them.
The Italian Consul-General in Karachi, Fabrizio Nicoletti, gave a dinner in honour of Farfani and invited many social workers and society leaders. She was delighted to meet Zia Ispahani who was our ambassador in Italy and got to know her then.
On her return to Karachi, Farfari rang up the daughter of the ultra-rich prime minister of Italy, Burlosconi, and asked her to arrange for a million dollars from her father for later distribution to the deprived in Kabul.
Among the guests was an Italian, Peido Massimo, who has spent 20 years in Karachi exporting Pakistani textiles to Italy. He has his company, Maxco (Pvt) Ltd, in Korangi Creek and he says he has enjoyed his stay in Pakistan.
Another Italian there has spent 10 years in Pakistan off and on. He is head of the Italian archeological team that has been digging in Sindh. Earlier, last month, I had met a French lady doing the same into our past, while we are groping in the dark about the shape of our future.
Sabra Tapal, whose artistic daughter in married to the son of the former Italian Consul-General, Marco Filipp Tornetto, was there.
Relatively young, Moin Fudda has climbed high on the corporate ladder as well as become prominent in diplomatic circles within a short time. He became chief executive of Commercial Union, the largest foreign insurance company then, at a very early age, succeeding the veteran Irshaduddin. The general insurance company was soon followed by the CU for life, the life insurance company.
He earlier became president of the Management Association of Pakistan and is now president of the Overseas Investors Chamber. In both the organizations, he has been a very active chief.
In the early 80s, he became honorary trade commissioner of New Zealand and then honorary consul of the country down under, and soon its honorary consul-general, seeking to promote larger economic cooperation between the two countries. That task has fallen on his shoulders in full, as NZ does not have a resident High Commissioner in Islamabad. He lives in Tehran and visits Pakistan time-to-time, during which Fudda holds a large dinner. And if the time is right, has the national day celebrations of NZ as well.
The volume of trade between the two countries is not large enough for NZ to invest on a high commissioner in Islamabad. That lovely ultra economy-minded country needs a trade of $250 to 300 million to have its own high commissioner here.
In view of the good work Fudda has done, NZ has conferred on him the order of the officer of the NZ, following the Century Medal he had received two years ago when NZ celebrated 150 years of its founding.
Deciding on the medal is a pretty protracted exercise. Queen Elizabeth, who is the Queen of NZ as well, had to approve it and then the President of Pakistan, that takes time. Then Fudda had the option of going to NZ to receive the medal at a formal ceremony from the governor general or have the ceremony in Karachi. He chose the latter. And High Commissioner, Niels Holm, came here from Tehran accompanied by his wife, Suzette, and to participate in the national day celebrations by the CU’s office at a large dinner and pinned the award after reading the highly-complimentary citation.
Sindh Governor, Mohammedmian Soomro, was there and delighted by the honour given to a prominent Pakistani by NZ. He hoped that it would usher in large economic cooperation between the two countries. Corporate barons and the consular corps were well-represented at the dinner.
SRI LANKA DAY
Thanks to our prolonged and frequent military rule, the Sri Lankan High Commissioners in Pakistan are often former chiefs of staff of the army. Right now, Gen C.D. Weerasoorya is the high commissioner, and he was there with his wife at the national day reception hosted by Sri Lanka’s Honorary Consul, Sheikh Mohammad Obaid, a textile tycoon in towels, in particular, and his wife.
Though billed as a reception, Obaids’ party is usually dinner complete, this time with Masala Dosa for which there was a long queue — particularly by the ladies, after drinking coconut water.
Chairman of ICI, Munnawar Hamid, and his wife were there along with textile magnates such as Aziz Memon and Bashir Alimohammad of Gul Ahmed Textiles. Sardar Sherbaz Mazari was there with his wife, Suraya, as well as the doyen of the honorary consular corps, Mahmud Ahad, who represents Finland.
Sri Lanka now also has a consul-general in Gernando, who was formerly trade commissioner of that country here in the 1980s. Since then, he had assignments in countries as varied as Japan and Germany, and has returned here as Sir Lanka’s chief diplomatic officer.
Sameen Khan, who claims to be an authority on Afghanistan following several visits there, says he knows all its leaders were there making an offer to win friends in Pakistan.
RICHARD HYDE
IT was a big farewell party at Runnymede and the hosts, David Pearey, and his wife, Sue, explained Richard Hyde was not only leaving Pakistan, but also retiring from service after over 35 years. The gentle commercial chief of Britain in Karachi and his African-born wife, Anna, are settling down in Madagascar as he had sent most of his professional life in that continent and loves life there.
Pearey spoke of what a good colleague Hyde had been and Hyde spoke of how he enjoyed his stay in the city.
Apart from the corporate barons and multinational chiefs, there were artists such as Gulgee with his wife, Zarro, and young Shehla Rahman whose work Hyde likes. Attaka, the cultural secretary of the Japanese consulate general and his wife, who is a professor of Ikebana, were there.
Earlier in the day, Aziz Memon had given a lunch to bid farewell to Hyde and welcome his successor, Roger Skykes, who comes here after spending four years in Saudi Arabia in the economic sector. Skykes and his wife were welcomed warmly by David Pearey at his reception.
UAE CUISINE
When the UAE Consul-General, Abdullah Amir Falasi, gives a dinner, he makes it an elaborate Gulf area menu. If there is plenty of meat and fish-based dishes, there is a variety of curd-based items as well along with freshly-pickled olives. For all that, he is an abstemious eater and stays very slim, arguing the best things are for others.
When he gave a dinner recently, the Gulf consular corps was in full strength, inclusive the representatives of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Dr Rafiq Mustafa Shah, who had taken the diplomats on a visit to Sindh and on a duck shoot that they enjoyed, was there talking of another round soon. The doctor who is a radiologist and son of former federal education minister, Dr Ghulam Mustafa Shah, owns a sugar mill near Hyderabad and he took the consuls there as well. Tajikistan’s first secretary was there. He speaks fluent Urdu as he was earlier educated in India and posted there as well. Emirates Airline Chief, Naseer Abdullah, was there, happy over the full resumption of the airlines services to Pakistan. He is now focusing on sending as many persons as possible for the Dubai Shopping Festival.
Builder Farooq Hasan was there as well as Arif Jatoi, son of Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, who is popular with the diplomats.
THE FORUM
Journalists were surprised to see the remarkable quality of the 6,533 square-yard Forum built at 11 levels as designed by the famous architect, Habib Fida Ali. Its broad corridors and wide roads all around, and the parking space at two parking lots are very unusual for Pakistan.
Maleehuddin Sheikh and Yameenuddin Sheikh of Quality Construction, that erected the imposing building with tall columns all around, say they gave total freedom to Habib and he had done exceedingly well. Of the eleven floors, seven are for offices two for shopping and two for parking, including for 100 visitors’ cars.
Many of its tenants are multinationals such as Lasmo Oil that has an entire floor. Other multinational outfits love the place.
Lasmo is helping to convert an open ground of 16.000 square yards into a fine park, which will face the food court which is to open in The Forum.
The building is totally depend on its own power production and has never experienced power failure even for a day in two years. There is plenty of greenery within the building to soften its appearance. It is a truly modern building and reminds one of New York with its style.
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