Must do better

Government needs to consolidate in areas it has a reasonable showing but make far greater effort in areas of weakness

School report cards can be brutally honest as they strip away the parental fantasies surrounding the academic curve of their brilliant child — and political report cards no less so. The report issued by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) on the PML-N’s first year of governance is no less ruthless. The quality of governance has “marginally improved” based on data provided on 25 indicators for 2012-13 and 2013-14. The value of the scores was very uneven, and reflective of where the government has placed its priorities. It scored above 60 per cent in only three areas — disaster preparedness, merit-based recruitment and promotions and foreign policy management. Where it scored lowest was in the areas closer to the hearts and minds of ordinary people — poverty alleviation (22 per cent) and transparency (27 per cent.)



The reality is that no government would ever be likely to have a uniform across-the-board score, but the scores should give government policymakers pause for thought as they consider governmental direction between now and the next election. On the plus side, there is an overall improvement, but the improvements are in areas that do little to impact on the lot of a poverty-stricken population, although some may point to an improvement in the security environment but most of that has come post to the period covered by the PILDAT report.

The government now needs to consolidate in the areas where it has a reasonable showing but make far greater effort in areas of weakness, in particular poverty alleviation. In economic terms, there does appear to be a slow recovery in process, and foreign inwards investments are trending upwards, but by way of counterbalance, internal revenue generation via taxation has made little or no perceptible progress. There has been a very welcome improvement in the literacy rate, but with half the population living below the official poverty line, the Millennium Development Goals all look set to be missed. ‘Must do better’ must be the watchwords for the immediate future, especially if the PML-N government hopes to win the next elections — because voters can be hard taskmasters.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 11^th,  2015.

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