Balochistan’s sad state of affairs

Instead of delivering public services, cabinets in the province have focused on distributing spoils among themselves.

A refrain of civilian rulers at the federal level has been that they do not have the full power to govern. At the provincial level, only governments in Balochistan have had a similar refrain. Instead of delivering public services, therefore, the cabinets in the province have focused on distributing the spoils among themselves. The annual development programme has been allocated among ministers rather than according to priorities. The current budget is also a matter of political appropriation in the form of ghost personnel. The fate of the packages from the federal government is no different; they also end up in private gain.

The present government is different. It has a chief minister whose heart is in the right place and any form of corruption is hard to associate with his name. One had mainly seen him in the civil society forums, saying all the right things. Governor Muhammad Khan Achigzai, a colleague from the Planning Commission days, is a man of impeccable integrity. However, this government is weaker than the previous government in more ways than one. In addition to the powerlessness characterising previous governments, this government has a structural deformation. It is headed by a person whose party does not have the largest number of seats within the coalition. This makes politics the art of the impossible. The government is more like a federal package given to Balochistan by the well-intentioned PML-N government of Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif. The governor and the chief minister are similarly well intentioned. Nothing of note is, however, happening. It is becoming a classic case of the road to hell paved with good intentions. Dialogue with the good Taliban has precedence over dialogue with bad Baloch. The missing persons remain missing and the deep state is digging deeper. Ownership of natural resources, more important to Balochistan than an increased NFC share, continues to be a bone of contention between the federal and provincial governments. Balochistan’s quota in federal jobs is underutilised. The last earthquake showed that the hapless people have to depend more on the deep state and the antics of the chief minister of Punjab than their own provincial government.

Balochistan continues to reproduce backwardness. According to the Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement 2012-13, gross primary enrolment rate was 73 per cent against 91 per cent for the country. For Dera Bugti, it was as low as 23 per cent. The more relevant net enrolment rate was a mere 45 per cent for the province and nine per cent for Dera Bugti. Enrolment at the middle and matric level is worse. Indeed, net enrolment at matric level in Dera Bugti and Kohlu was zero. The health sector reinforces deprivation. Immunisation coverage was only 29 per cent. The proportion of children under five years of age suffering from diarrhoea in Mastung was 42 per cent, the highest for any district in the country. Pregnant women receiving tetanus toxoid injection in Kohlu were only four per cent. Washuk does not have a single household using tap water. In sanitation, the province lies at the bottom. The national average for household use of gas/kerosene was 38 per cent. Balochistan, with 23 per cent, is behind even Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The percentage of households reporting no change in their own and general economic situation has risen. Satisfaction from police services declined from 56 to 50 per cent.

This pathetic socioeconomic picture relates to the last year of the previous government. However, the present government is unable to put its money where the mouth is. Out of a total development allocation of Rs40 billion, it utilised only Rs4.7 billion in its first six months.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11^th, 2014.

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