Is there hope?

Why not? We get our act together, prioritise what is urgent, essential and immediate, allocate resource and get it done. There isn’t a bigger authority than a prime minister in our power structure and there isn’t a reason in the world why he cannot get things done. Simple things: like getting the bureaucracy, police inclusive, to begin doing their assigned role and ensure there is no interference by any quarters as they go through with their business. No money involved. The chief ministers, chief secretaries and inspector general(s) of police should at least be able to do as much. That is how the rest of the world functions; that is how we must too. Cut the rhetoric of reform. Reform is in making and letting them do what they were hired for. Just a slight tweak in approach and attitude; reform is too heavy a name for it.

So, should the ministers. With the amount of rain and snow that has occurred over this winter the water minister shouldn’t have any time to spare for evening television carrying boots from one show to the other. He should be asked, what “dear minister” are your plans to harvest all the water that nature has blessed our way? Did we develop small dams to pool the water that will come handy in the next cropping season? Have we channeled some to refill our ever-drying aquifers or help create some deep wells for locational storage? Balochistan is one such opportunity where snowfall this year was plenty. Fresh snow may be good for skiing and tourism but it also is an optimal source of fresh water asking the water ministry to do its share. Or are we only resigned to bickering and bitching of water scarcity?

Ditto for the agriculture minister. And where the responsibilities have now devolved with the provinces — a perfect alibi for incompetence — use the forum of the CCI where other than resource distribution, something sensible, productive and creative may be agreed to. For example water use; crop patterns and optimal use of the land resource for the most profitable crops — engendering affiliated industry around it (take the sugar mills out of the cotton growing regions); leap-frogging sequential development conservancy to what beckons in this century — IT, software and AI — and to seam it all together into products which can earn the nation essential foreign exchange. Digitise Pakistan; let the scope of the union open up, despite the 18th. Why don’t we meet up? Why don’t we talk?

If the provinces yet don’t have ministers for food security, create the slots and merge those in with the agriculture portfolios. Then ask them what their plans are to ensure there is no manipulation of the market by the “mafias” around artificial shortages to enhance prices to benefit a few. Some staples are essential to keep the cycle of life going in ordinary homes. That is what governments do: plan, pre-empt and check. And where necessary, provision. That is why governments are the singular power wielders in the country. A government has three wards — the state, society, and the economy. And to develop infrastructure which will assist in all three. And administer to keep life going, safely and securely.  Economy generates the resource for governments to spend in all these areas. Stealing from people’s pockets doesn’t.

So, there is a lot the food security ministers will need to explain here, this season. What went wrong? Why? Why couldn’t government powers be used to effect? Why were the provinces sleeping over their most basic responsibility? Let the chief ministers explain themselves to the people through the Press after each CCI.

Mate idle state-land and water to increase the area under production suitable to the kind of crop relevant in the region. Allocate resources from the PSDP for such high-value projects, not hand those over to members of parliament in political bribes. Converting agricultural land into housing colonies should be strictly prohibited by law and punishable to the highest degree. Nor hand state land over to another mafia of the property sector to build more residential complexes. Gradually weed out those who are in politics for influence and profit and let those who are in it for public service rise. If there is a critical reform needed in our existing system it is in the system of politics and in the quality of those who partake in it. Shutting out the avenues of development funds is the quickest and the surest relief from the ill of ill-equipped and ill-intended benefactors of the system.

Do the simple things. Forget innovation in reconciling syllabi and bringing all under one medium of instruction. That will come when the society is more or less at the same level, if ever. But what is handy is to spend the amount usefully in what is allocated for education. Provinces usually under-spend. If we can get our teachers in government schools trained and the schools functional at a decent level in the next few years, we would have turned the corner. Quality of education in our government schools is the key to a change in our societal fortunes. The schools must be graded per their performance and those at the bottom made to explain. Ditto for the public health sector. It doesn’t need enhanced allocation; just that what is allocated is fruitfully spent.

If revenues aren’t enough which will always be the case because we are in such a squeeze we don’t need to build new and fresh. Simply, maintain what is already there. Except, of course, those mega structures which spur the economy and are internationally financed. And keep the spaces clean through tens of hundreds of municipal workers who are anyway being paid and only need to be put to work. That much should be possible and doesn’t need a minister to oversee that they earn their dues. Scaling down the bureaucracy and instead introducing technology shall be the greatest game-changer to our system of governance.

Charities are personal not governmental. The sanctity of public money needs to be respected. While social safety nets may be imperative in a largely non-performing economy they must aim at teaching skills and vocations. Even as they subsist they must enable individuals to be productive for themselves. Channeled support for incubation of ideas and start-ups is what those with money can contribute in the current times. Such entities could be rewarded with tax relief. Skilled manpower can better suit the needs of an evolving labour market and the Middle East needs to be better tapped for the period we are tied with them in a symbiotic existence. Let’s keep it simple in these testing times than chase celestial dreams.

It’s time to make every member count. Those short on skills or comprehension deserve the boot. This is no time for starry-eyed loyalty.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 16^th, 2020.

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