LAHORE: With elections round the corner the expected economic turnaround has not yet taken place despite complete adherence of the last elected and the current caretaker governments to the recipe suggested by the International Monetary Fund.
The economic fundamentals have somewhat improved but the miseries of the public at large have intensified. The electorate at the time of election is more interested in the relief and abhors further stress. They are confused about whom to blame for their distress. Is it the PTI, PDM coalition or the caretakers? The chronology of the past five years reveals that each government played a part in creating the present mess. All the three governments were well aware that Pakistan cannot afford to pursue consumptive policies as the exchequer was empty and even the day to day affairs were run on high interest loans secured by the state.
The false claims of high growth in the last year of the PTI government did not lessen the difficulties of the poor as inflation continued to rise and rupee remained under constant pressure. The succeeding coalition government it now looks was not capable of meeting the economic challenges ahead. It had to finally succumb to the dictates of the IMF and increase petrol, power and gas rates. The central bank was constrained to take up the policy rate to 22 percent in order to control inflation that intensified as a result of government measures and its continuous reliance on borrowing from any source and at any cost.
The most depressing aspect of the last five years’ governance was that the government expenditures increased much above the additional revenues generated in each of the last five years. Each government claimed that it was promoting austerity but the ground realities were to the contrary. In austerity the expenses declined but in Pakistan’s case the expenses continued to increase despite various austerity measures announced by the state.
The caretaker government at the sidelines did try to bring investment but the promises it got were on paper only. Nothing practical has happened in this regard. Pakistan needed to create three to four million jobs in each of past five years but we hardly provided cumulatively four million jobs during this period. The unemployed pool has swollen to alarming levels. We need to construct around 800000 houses yearly to provide shelter to the 2.5 percent population increase that occurs yearly. We did not construct even one year’s requirements in the last five years. The backlog is increasing. Moreover whatever housings were added were constructed by the affluent while the housing need exists at lower strata of society. They need up to three marla houses. The construction cost has gone much beyond the means of the poor.
Our education system has deteriorated further in each of the last five years. In fact the hold of the elite on education has been consolidated. Knowledge imparted to youth will now only come from affluent society for executive jobs. Those educated from public education would either get menial office jobs or create trouble in society.
The economic situation is far from satisfactory. We cannot expect a quick turnaround. In fact even a modest growth would only be possible if we adhere to strict merit, transparency and the highest level of governance. Nepotism, corruption, and incompetence if continued by the next elected government might create a chaos that would be hard to control. We need to get rid of crooks from society who are in larger numbers. Who will bell the cat?
