Debate on Vision 2025: Experts doubt PC will come up with credible reforms

Planning minister unveils solutions to problems besetting the country.

ISLAMABAD:

As the government formally initiates debate on Vision 2025, which is aimed at undertaking major reforms, experts have called into question the ability of planners to produce an intricate policy document that too without taking provinces on board.

The intelligentsia that assembled in the Planning Commission (PC) here on Monday also suspected the federal government’s ability to implement Vision 2025, particularly when the PC is called the “graveyard of plans and visions” waiting for implementation. They also found to be missing resources that are essential for implementation of any policy.

People were invited by the PC from all walks of life to seek their input on the vision that revolves around seven themes to address all economic and social ills in the country.

Unveiling solutions to problems, Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal said an integrated energy model will be the first pillar of Vision 2025.



He said the second priority area will be stabilisation of the economy on a sustainable basis and the plan will focus on tapping indigenous resources while moving away from reliance on foreign resources like external aid and remittances. “The future of the country is in TIE – tax, investment and exports,” he added.

He associated future economic development with private sector-led growth, saying public investment alone could not boost growth due to increasing needs of investment in mega projects. This will be the third guiding theme.

The government will also encourage commodity-based production in an effort to shift to value addition for making big fortunes instead of solely depending on exports of raw products. In the plan, the fourth pillar will be the promotion of commodity-based sectors.

Modernisation of infrastructure will be the fifth pillar aimed at getting maximum benefit from the country’s geographical position. Reforming institutions and introducing e-governance will be another theme under which reforms will be introduced in the public sector.

The last pillar of the vision will be building the social sector. Iqbal said so far the emphasis had been “on building hard wares by compromising the soft side of development”. Harnessing the potential of youth for making a progressive Pakistan will be part of the last pillar, he added.

Iqbal said political stability will lead to economic stability that will ensure implementation of mega plans and projects.

But experts feared that due to decay in bureaucracy, the government willd not be able to even write a good plan.

“My fear is that the PC does not have the professional capacity to produce such plans and visions,” said Dr Pervez Tahir, a former chief economist of Pakistan.

He said there was also a question mark hanging over the PC itself as to what extent it has the authority to undertake work after the 18th Amendment in the constitution. The 18th Amendment has empowered provinces and without their input no plan can deliver, he said.

Dr Ashfaque Hasan Khan, Dean of Business School of National University of Science and Technology, also questioned implementation of the Vision 2025 without taking the provinces on board.

He asked the government to take guidance from the policy documents produced earlier. “We cannot reinvent the same wheel, if problems remain the same over the years,” said Khan.

Acknowledging the PC’s capacity constraints, Iqbal said the federal government would hire quality professionals from the private sector in addition to engaging dozens of young professionals to produce a quality policy document.

The executive director of Higher Education Commission spoke about financial and human resources needed to prepare and implement the Vision 2025 and efforts needed to implement plans, as the PC has become “graveyard of plans and visions”.

From Vision 2010, prepared by Ahsan Iqbal when he was deputy chairman of the PC in 1998, to Vision 2030 of General Pervez Musharraf and the Framework of Economic Growth by Dr Nadeemul Haque, the deputy chairman of the PC from 2010-2013, none of them were implemented.

Civil service reforms is a prerequisite for any kind of reforms, said Ismail Qureshi, Rector of National School of Public Policy.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 20^th, 2013.

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