Don’t take the threat lightly

We would to be on our own if the US threat of cutting off aid is actually carried out. Let us have a plan ‘B’

Let us not take the latest aid cut threat emanating from the US lightly by dismissing it as having been motivated by “baseless concerns” of “a section of (US) lawmakers”. They have already done it once in the 1990s by the end of which we were the most sanctioned country after Libya. First they punished us for having crossed the nuclear red-line and then for conducting a nuclear weapons’ test in a tit-for-tat after the Indian tests. And this happened when we had just won them an existential war for the so-called ‘free world’ against Soviet communism. Just imagine how insensitive they would be to our concerns when as opposed to the 1990s the latest threat comes in the wake of their accusations that we are aiding and abetting their enemies in Afghanistan and forcing them to put the lives of their soldiers at great risk.

During this decade of sanctions, our economy was sustained by the dole that we used to receive under the table from our oil-rich Middle Eastern Muslim brothers. Saudi Arabia alone was supplying us a significant bulk of our oil needs on deferred payment. But today, these Middle East brothers do not have enough for their own needs because of a mini-crash in the world oil market. They, therefore, cannot afford the luxury of paying for Pakistani needs as well.

So, we would be on our own if the threat of aid cut is actually carried out. Therefore, let us have a plan ‘B’ in hand and not be caught unawares as we were in the 1990s. Indeed, it is always good to be your own master, especially in the matter of economy. One is able to safeguard one’s political sovereignty more effectively only when one’s economy is not dependent on any outsider, especially on a superpower which does not believe in offering ‘free lunches’ to even its closest friends.

So, if at all the threat emanating from a US Congressional panel is actually carried out, we should all thank our stars for it and move on instead of wasting our time, behaving like jilted lovers. But that we can do only if we have in hand a plan ‘B’ well in time. And since the aid cut would immediately result in a more acute resource constraint, the main focus of this plan should be to accelerate our revenue collection ability and using these resources to speed up economic growth aimed at generating enough resources to meet our essential development and non-development needs without the crutches of foreign assistance.

It is an increasingly interdependent world in which we live today. Therefore, the plan ‘B’ should also focus on creating the enabling social and physical environment within the country to attract foreign investment like the one that China has committed under the $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. The right courses should be introduced in our schools and colleges to develop a critical mass of technically well versed high-tech savvy graduates as well as skilled and semi-skilled handypersons. At the same time we need to ensure that our expanding economy receives adequate supplies of electricity, gas and water.

This is easier said than done. Indeed, it would require genuine willingness on the part of the ruling elite to give up their wasteful lifestyles and focus on eliminating corruption from among their ilk. Next, the sanctity of rule of law should be restored immediately so that courts are enabled to dispose of their cases within a reasonable time frame, especially those cases in which tax payers are contesting tax collectors’ claims.

If we could only succeed in whitening at least half of our black economy that is said to be almost three times the white economy, we could perhaps be able to sustain our economy on our own without foreign dole and also be able to accelerate its growth at a rate needed to make the trickle-down effect actually knock a significant dent in the incidence of poverty in the country. According to a news item in this newspaper “Proposals moved to calm jittery players in real estate sector” (page 10, July 14, 2016), currently as much as Rs7 trillion of black money is stashed in just one sector of the economy — the real estate — which is almost one fourth of the actual GDP!

Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2016.

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