One wonders whom the Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh was trying to fool when he was announcing the publication of the economic survey of Pakistan 2012 in a press conference on Thursday, presenting the fact that all important economic targets have been missed as a kind of victory. He praised the growth rate of 3.7% as an achievement as compared to the 3 % of last year a figure that was produced by his team in painstaking work manipulating all indicators to press out this modest growth as the major success of the government. One wonders even more how this could be true given the fact that our industries are on halt for the lack of power and gas coupled with breakdown of law & order for much of the last 3 years period. We remember Mr. Hafeez Sheikh tall claims of brinkmanship as Federal Minister for Privatization & Investment from 2002 to early 2006 during Musharraf regime, when KESC & PTCL were sold by compromising our national interest. The rosy picture in economic survey which he has tried to portray was earlier done in the economic survey of 2007 by General Musharraf government claiming that milk & honey is flowing in the streets of Pakistan , but sweat, blood and flesh of the poor is being targeted due to financial and economic mismanagement by present government. How innocently Mr. Hafeez Sheikh wanted us to believe the reason for this bad performance because the bad guys were the monsoon and the security situation, what an excuse! True, the latter has seen under PPP rule an unprecedented deterioration. Balochistan is up in flames, in Karachi since last summer people are tortured and killed on a daily basis, extortion, kidnapping for ransom and the PPP’s ethnicising of politics such as naming NWFP Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh card and making of Bahawalpur and Multan provinces is about to tear apart the anyway weak fabric of the federation of Pakistan. This is not an inevitable process but a result of putting PPP party interests above national interests and, of course, of mounting corruption and bad governance at all levels of politics, administration and economy.
One of the landmarks is the low level of taxation and tax collection, in fact a real tax culture has not been acceptable to the feudal dominated parliamentarians who claim to be the real framers of law and hence tax exemptions on agricultural produce, urban and agricultural properties followed by protection to vested interest groups in multinational companies continue to evade payment of taxes in Pakistan. The minister highlighted that the tax revenue needed to be collected to ensure self-sustenance of the country. He maintained that this was a very difficult job adding that there were powerful people, groups and representatives of industries, who do not want to be burdened by tax. What he forgot to mention was that a good part of those people were members of his party and sitting in the government. While the government was borrowing more then 3 to 4 billion rupees on daily basis during last year from State Bank of Pakistan and Commercial Banks, which may escape the eyes of common man having a glance of the voluminous budget document.
Another unbelievable figure presented by the Minister was the one saying that the government reduced expenses by 10%. When and how could that happen? We remember the huge entourage of the Prime Minister, when he went to Great Britain just a couple of days ago where it is reported in the media that some four hundred thousand in pound sterling was paid towards hotel room charges only.
We also remember the shameful remarks given by famous Hollywood actress Angelina Julie about her visit to Pakistan, when she had come to Pakistan two years back as UN Secretary General Ambassador for Aid to visit the flood affected areas to mobilize funds from UN promised fund that she reported back that to have a photo session with her Prime Minister dispatched his official aircraft to bring his family from Multan to a Lunch extended in her honour and perhaps they went back to Multan after Lunch in the same plane and on top of that the number of dishes which were served during that lunch can only be left to readers imagination, she wrote further: this shows they have enough funds and they don’t need our support?. What a shame isn’t it? And we remember the 3 billion rupees reported on TV discussion that was put aside by the government to finance the coalition partners and PPP’s election campaign and bribe the media and others.
For reasons best known to Mr. Sheikh the poverty indicator was omitted from the survey. The excuse was that the Planning Commission had not yet released the data, another target not reached. For this sensitive exercise of finding out a poverty index a committee of poverty experts had been constituted in the Planning and Development Division to estimate the poverty headcount as well as poverty correlates. One can imagine under what pressure they are trying to produce a reduction in poverty right now.
With rising prices for all food items, for electricity, water, transport what can we expect? Only a fall in the poverty index – that is according to the manipulative working of this government and its institutions. The fact remains that our estimates upto 2008 were that more then 40% people in Pakistan are living below the poverty line, which must have increased tremendously as the prices of essential items of daily use have gone up at least three fold. When will Pakistan finally have a government that is putting national interest and people’s welfare above narrow personal gain and party interests? The new economic report 2012 is a proof of the bad performance of the sitting government even if the minister tries to present it as an achievement. Let’s hope that this lesson will be taken by the public in the forthcoming elections at the time of casting of vote, otherwise nature will unfold its own results according to the deeds and misdeeds of leaders and the led. God bless Pakistan.
One of the landmarks is the low level of taxation and tax collection, in fact a real tax culture has not been acceptable to the feudal dominated parliamentarians who claim to be the real framers of law and hence tax exemptions on agricultural produce, urban and agricultural properties followed by protection to vested interest groups in multinational companies continue to evade payment of taxes in Pakistan. The minister highlighted that the tax revenue needed to be collected to ensure self-sustenance of the country. He maintained that this was a very difficult job adding that there were powerful people, groups and representatives of industries, who do not want to be burdened by tax. What he forgot to mention was that a good part of those people were members of his party and sitting in the government. While the government was borrowing more then 3 to 4 billion rupees on daily basis during last year from State Bank of Pakistan and Commercial Banks, which may escape the eyes of common man having a glance of the voluminous budget document.
Another unbelievable figure presented by the Minister was the one saying that the government reduced expenses by 10%. When and how could that happen? We remember the huge entourage of the Prime Minister, when he went to Great Britain just a couple of days ago where it is reported in the media that some four hundred thousand in pound sterling was paid towards hotel room charges only.
We also remember the shameful remarks given by famous Hollywood actress Angelina Julie about her visit to Pakistan, when she had come to Pakistan two years back as UN Secretary General Ambassador for Aid to visit the flood affected areas to mobilize funds from UN promised fund that she reported back that to have a photo session with her Prime Minister dispatched his official aircraft to bring his family from Multan to a Lunch extended in her honour and perhaps they went back to Multan after Lunch in the same plane and on top of that the number of dishes which were served during that lunch can only be left to readers imagination, she wrote further: this shows they have enough funds and they don’t need our support?. What a shame isn’t it? And we remember the 3 billion rupees reported on TV discussion that was put aside by the government to finance the coalition partners and PPP’s election campaign and bribe the media and others.
For reasons best known to Mr. Sheikh the poverty indicator was omitted from the survey. The excuse was that the Planning Commission had not yet released the data, another target not reached. For this sensitive exercise of finding out a poverty index a committee of poverty experts had been constituted in the Planning and Development Division to estimate the poverty headcount as well as poverty correlates. One can imagine under what pressure they are trying to produce a reduction in poverty right now.
With rising prices for all food items, for electricity, water, transport what can we expect? Only a fall in the poverty index – that is according to the manipulative working of this government and its institutions. The fact remains that our estimates upto 2008 were that more then 40% people in Pakistan are living below the poverty line, which must have increased tremendously as the prices of essential items of daily use have gone up at least three fold. When will Pakistan finally have a government that is putting national interest and people’s welfare above narrow personal gain and party interests? The new economic report 2012 is a proof of the bad performance of the sitting government even if the minister tries to present it as an achievement. Let’s hope that this lesson will be taken by the public in the forthcoming elections at the time of casting of vote, otherwise nature will unfold its own results according to the deeds and misdeeds of leaders and the led. God bless Pakistan.
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