You don’t have to wait for a special occasion to celebrate those who deserve it. So, this week’s award goes to the British American Investment (BAI) special administrator, Mushtaq Oosman. Special because he was promoted from simple administrator to a super one with full powers. And, with the powers conferred upon him, his first act was to lay off poor workers who can never have the ambition of becoming as special as he is. So there went the Apollo Hospital workers, those in the GRNW boatyard, Courts, Iframac and just about all the workers whose livelihood depended on his good services.

Before he had the opportunity to uncork the celebratory champagne, though, the government came down hard on him by cancelling – or at least postponing to a more convenient time – all his decisions, with the minister of labour accusing him of not having consulted him before taking such drastic measures. Criticising him and his ‘companion in crime’ – Yogesh Rai Basgeet – for not following “proper legal procedures when dismissing 704 employees in the BAI Group”, the minister asked the employees to literally ignore the letter of the special administrators – who turned out not to be so special after all – and go back to work!

Whether the sacked and quickly called back to work employees will be able to hold on to their jobs once the municipal elections are over or not remains to be seen. A second dismissal would be even more tragic but that is a debate for another day. The point is this: Under normal circumstances, normal people in situations like these would hang their heads in shame for having caused undue distress and contributed to human tragedies on such a large scale. Ordinary people would perhaps even contemplate handing in their resignation for having had their decisions overturned overnight.

These are, however, no ordinary people. So, Mr. Oosman finds it in his heart to tell us, basically, that he is very happy that the government has reversed the decision of dismissing the workers! In other words, if my poor logic serves me right, he is overjoyed that the government overruled a decision taken by him! How much Mr. Oosman is being paid to take decisions he is happy to have overruled by the government is top secret. What we do know, however, is that his fees will be the first to be saved from whatever mess the BAI has been put in. Workers, shareholders and other stakeholders will have to queue up patiently behind him.

So the government members have reassured everyone, once again, that in spite of the cock-up caused by the special administrators, everything is fine for the workers after all, just as everything is fine for all the other ‘victims’. All this leads us to ask one simple – call it simplistic if you wish – question but a question which every other simplistic person must be asking: If no jobs are going to be lost, if no policyholders are going to lose any money, if all bank depositors are free to withdraw money as they wish, if none of this is going to be paid for by the taxpayer, what exactly was the problem with the BAI in the first place? Why did we trigger the social unrest which the government seems to be congratulating itself for having now stemmed?

But then again, ordinary people like us do not have the answers to such questions. Ask the super administrators when you have the privilege of meeting them. They are super-efficient – at least in trying very hard to lay off workers and congratulating themselves for failing to do even that.