KARACHI:
China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) operate profitably, produce high-tech products, and are involved in research and development because those who head these commercial enterprises are qualified professionals selected on merit. The state exercises strict regulatory controls on all the SOEs, ensuring that they are not employing retired public office holders or political cronies. Resultantly, China has emerged as a leading financial giant. During the tenure of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan briefly witnessed PIA being restructured and run as a profitable organisation. The national airline was reorganised and gained significant recognition. Unfortunately, this did not last long.
A country with a free enterprise economy must have an independent judiciary, rule of law, and state institutions working within the ambit of a constitution, and only then can it adopt the practice that “it is not the business of the state, to do business”. In such democratic free-market system countries, the state exercises powerful regulatory controls, which are answerable to both parliament and an independent judiciary to ensure that there are no cartels, no conflicts of interest, and abuse of power. State assets or land in such countries cannot be allotted to individuals or groups, except for public interest projects with approval from parliament, or sold in an open auction to the highest bidder, with funds accruing from such transactions deposited in the national exchequer.
Pakistan’s economy is neither a free market nor a country where the SOEs are operated on merit as is done in China. What we have is a massive abuse of power by few, who plunder state lands and assets, with a compromised regulatory control by the state, whose public office holders are captive to their conflicts of interest and unchecked insatiable greed.
Malik Tariq
Lahore
Published in The Express Tribune, March 10th, 2022.
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