Out with the old

The villain of the piece emerges as the Planning Ministry which failed to play its role

The Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) has for decades been a happy hunting ground for politicians wanting to polish either their image or curry favour and often both — and the brakes have just gone on. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government has opted to drop almost Rs1.6 trillion worth of projects from the PSDP and divert the funds in the direction of schemes that are incomplete or which have approval but await implementation. In all, this will affect about 450 projects in 2018-19 and bring the overall number down to 850 according to the Planning Ministry. It is of note that none of the 450 to be axed had been approved, and some of them were very substantial. Over 60 projects of the National Highway Authority (NHA) costing Rs1 trillion are to go, and it is of equal significance that most of these are in Punjab, pointing to an inappropriate use of PSDP funding which under the last government had grown to 1,280 schemes.

The villain of the piece emerges as the Planning Ministry which failed to play the role of active filter with the obvious conclusion that it was politically influenced or directed, and surrendered what independence it had and uncertain ground now lies ahead. There has been no root-and-branch revision in the Planning Ministry since the PTI came to power, and the same people that advised or were compliant with the PML-N government are doing the same job for the PTI. The PTI is to a degree in the hands of the bureaucrats that run the planning ministry who like to run things their own way. Having lost their last political patrons, a new relationship has to be forged with the incomers. For the government seeking to rationalise the macroeconomic mess that it inherited this is a correct move and even if it can be made to stick it is going to take seven years to complete the projects that remain on the list. Adding more would amount to fiscal self-mutilation. The planning ministry assures one and all that matters will be clarified by the end of the week. A definite maybe, then. 

Published in The Express Tribune, September 21^st, 2018.

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