Lazarus the Financial Wizard 9

Having caused pandemonium and disorder the crowd demanded withdrawal of the team and put forward a series of demands. These included jobs, house, free education, fee medical services, a cow and five acres of land for all farmers. They argued for providing all these to all citizens with provision for funding by the international agency. The demand included writing off the loan in five years or treating it as an outright grant. The result was that the Agency blacklisted the state for eight years and looked for greener pastures where their investment and personnel would be safe. They also cancelled a $ 3 million loan for laying zebra crossings on highways, sanctioned earlier.

Lazarus utilized idle capacity in organizations by combining unrelated functions. Of course, he tried this act of combination as a last resort when further expansion of staff became impossible due to ban on creation of posts. He entrusted car theft cases to narcotic offences cell and gave charge of church administration and sports to Police Commissioner. Post of priests and mahouts were considered equivalent and freely interchangeable. To him the skills required for the two posts were similar. He filled the vacancy of a mahout or priest by transfer from other departments discharging diametrically opposite functions with conflicting skills. This resulted in a situation where the mahout manhandled the deity and the priest worshipped a rogue elephant. The two were equally disastrous from the point of view of the public.

He looked forward to frequent traveling as a means of escaping from work and responsibility. The extensive jurisdiction he had, entitled him to cover a large territory. There were many picnic spots and placs of tourist attraction spread over the state. He liberally used all official facilities of communication, transportation, accommodation, labor and contacts established through trading official power and patronage to enrich his pockets and bank balance. .

The low literacy, cowardice, and implicit obedience of the lower staff helped to spread the message of his visit. Influential persons were identified, contacted and messages sent to provide the best of comforts and entertainment, of course, free of cost. It became customary to end up such visits by planting several valuables varying from curios to gold in his official car. The vehicle had been emptied and fitted with deep partitiions for the special task of receiving materials and tangible honors. Since he believed in delegation, the task of ensuring correctness and accuracy of items received was entrusted to his wife. She invariably accompanied him. saved his time and never missed any such opportunity to enrich herself and her family. (To be continued)