Ali Baba of our times is a business man whom no bank would allow credit for no other reason than he never repaid any in the past. His brother Kassim did business on a grand scale and always he got credit. Why? The banks loved the very sight of Kassim who brought presents. (The manager who worked in the city office never worked in the same place for more than seven years. All presents large and small, brought by Kassim were to his own use. The manager took them and extended credit facilities yet higher). So the manager did business with alacrity and Ali Baba cried in vexation. He did a little snooping around and found he had stuck to one bank through thick and thin. But his brother Kassim could afford bamboozle the Bank A and give presents to B so he got credit from manager of B at the drop of a hat (not to mention it was the manager who dived faster than the clerk and handed it back to him). He asked his elder brother if he ever repaid his loan to the banks A or B he did business with. “Oh no what for?” Kassim was flabbergasted, “I can always go to Bank C.”
Managers like birds of passage pick whatever they get(and sticky loans finally sink into the bottom of a sea no one wants to enter) so the kingdom is bustling with activities and all agree it is great to run through figures all neatly drawn up and certified by chartered accounting firms. Greatness for them was wealth you see and it changed hands on the mantra: ‘open sesame’.
Ali Baba understood the great mystery of public finances. He became known throughout the land as the master of making great deals.
You show first what it is to be great in ways others can accept as true.
Benny