A government in panic

Megaprojects that can wait are being launched at the cost of social sectors like education and health


Editorial December 14, 2014

One feels like a blind man looking for a black cat in a dark room while trying to locate the federal government, at least since mid-August. Not that it was visible even before August. In fact, the prime minister and his cabinet had started behaving like royalty since the PML-N won the May 2013 polls with more than a two-thirds majority. And until it was rudely shaken out of its royal slumber by Imran Khan of the PTI, the ruling party had treated parliament like a serfdom to be managed by remote control.



Adding insult to injury, soon after taking over the reins in Islamabad, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif distributed most of the coveted government posts either among family members or among close cronies from Lahore. And it was a power drunk Punjab government that had seemingly allowed the provincial police on June 17 to turn a simple matter of removing barriers in front of the offices of the Minhajul Quran into a bloody slaughter. From that day onwards, both the federal and Punjab governments appear to have been caught up in a political tailspin. There is visible panic in the ruling party as it appears to be trying without any success so far to politically counter Imran Khan’s effective anti-government campaign based on seemingly no more than half-truths and anecdotal evidence.

Meanwhile, the plentiful fiscal space that has now emerged in the economy since the collapse of world oil prices over the last five weeks allows the government one more chance to introduce the much-needed structural reforms and pull the economy out of the depths it has landed itself in. No serious attempt has been made so far to expand the tax base and remove uneconomic exemptions. The government continues to borrow and beg to fund the budget. The State Bank of Pakistan, the Federal Board of Revenue and the statistical division continue to remain under the strict control of the finance ministry, enabling the latter to paint a rosy picture of a gloomy state of affairs without being challenged by the relevant quarters. Megaprojects that can wait are being launched at the cost of social sectors like education and health. Profitable entities are being put on the auction block instead of loss-making ones and the proceeds from these sales continue to be used to fund budgetary deficits rather than retiring debt. Under the Eighteenth Amendment, five ministries and related departments are to be transferred to the provinces. But while the resources have been transferred to the provinces, most of the original responsibilities continue to be shouldered by the federation, causing the federal budget to remain perpetually in the red. The earlier a decision is taken in this regard, the better it would be for the federation as it is also providing subsidies from the national exchequer to Pepco, Railways, the Pakistan Steel Mills, and PIA, etc.

It is, however, a matter of great satisfaction that security-wise Pakistan seems to have made progress and become a somewhat safer place over the last six months than it was earlier, thanks largely to the decision of the army to finally move against militants in North Waziristan with the full backing of the political government, which earlier had wasted a lot of time trying to negotiate a peace deal with the Pakistani Taliban. The much-feared blowback did not happen except the bloody Wagah border incident of November 2.

Meanwhile, our foreign policy initiatives with regard to Afghanistan seem to be paying off as the trust deficit between Kabul and Islamabad has since seemingly reduced considerably. Both the army and the civilian government, thankfully, appear to be on the same page vis-a-vis the new Afghan policy. Similarly US-Pakistan relations, too, appear now to be more relaxed than they were six months ago. The new BJP government in India, however, appears to harbour a lot of self-created doubts about Islamabad’s motives with regard to its bid for normalisation of bilateral relations. The foreign policy front, therefore, has been marred by poor relations with India although progress in other avenues has been made in this regard.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 15th,  2014.

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COMMENTS (6)

salman | 9 years ago | Reply

Brave editorial from Express Tribune. Good!

Ebad | 9 years ago | Reply

@ Azam Khan You are right. The major flaw in his English here was where he wrote "we" instead of "I".

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