Chowrangi

Those who are in favour of another weekly holiday beside Sunday, cite (among other things), the tremendous progress made by countries which observe a five-day working week. They forget that after the second world war, the citizens of the defeated countries worked an extra four hours daily without claiming overtime or extra wages. They ignore the fact that in advanced countries, political parties do not call for strikes, and work does not come to a standstill for three days if a political figure is assassinated (as happened recently after the murder of Ms Benazir Bhutto).

They claim that the measure will result in a huge cut in electricity consumption. What about the extra electricity which will be used when offices and factories have to work an extra hour every day to maintain output? As for the enormous saving in fuel which is expected, the exact opposite will occur. All provincial government employees will head in their vehicles for their hometowns on Friday evenings to spend two days there (which they can’t do with one weekly holiday). As for those living in cities, they will spend the extra holiday going for overnight picnics to distant places, consuming more fuel than they normally do. And an extra weekly holiday will be the last straw for industrialists, who are already reeling from the effects of the rioting, looting and burning which took place last month, as well as the power breakdowns which affect production.

Rather than observe Saturday and Sunday as weekly holidays, it would be much better if we gave up two holidays (5th February and 1st May) which make the nation poorer and our rivals happy.

Other posts by Shakir Lakhani

• No limit on foreign exchange taken out of Pakistan - November 12th, 2008
• Some questions about the "forex" scandal - November 11th, 2008
• Enjoying life after sixty - November 7th, 2008
• A Hussein in the White House - November 5th, 2008
• Why are poor Pakistanis always punished? - October 31st, 2008
• Pakistan's Economic Crisis: we're responsible - October 29th, 2008
• How Wall Street operates - October 23rd, 2008
• We’ll always have corruption - October 19th, 2008
• If Pakistan goes to war with United States of America - October 9th, 2008
• Killing of Christians in Secular India - October 1st, 2008