According to a latest poll by Gallup Pakistan, public opinion on the opposition’s plans to protest against the government with regards to inflation and unemployment is somewhat equally divided. The pollster hasn’t yet released any survey on public opinion on traders and business community’s strikes and lockdowns against the government’s tax reforms, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if those results too are somewhat equally divided, which would only strengthen the case that reforms need strategic communication managers.
One of the fundamental messages that need to be put across to those businesses threatening with strikes and lockdowns is that reforms are not a yellow brick road that Dorothy can simply hop along to reach Emerald City. In a conversation with BR Research late last year, Nadeem Ul-Haq, former boss of the Planning Commission, couldn’t have said more clearly. Reforms are “an evolutionary process. If you try too hard and over plan you will run aground. It will never be neat, and it will never be fully planned…know that those guys (reformers) will make a mess. Be prepared to correct the mess. There is a lot of research showing that even businesses are a messy business.”
“As a people we have to learn that change and progress is a messy business and can’t happen without making mistakes. Everybody gets scared of reform that ‘oh it must happen neatly, slowly, sequentially’. All this is pseudo-intellectualism that does not take into account the mess we are already living in. Why are we trying to be safe? There is no mistake-proof way of doing reforms. You can’t make an omelette without breaking an egg,” said Nadeem. (See Brief Recording ‘Reforms will not work unless civil services are decentralised’ Oct 19, 2018)
The messy nature of reforms means that some people will be genuinely hurt; some would be hurt more than others; some less. But just as different companies and sectors enjoy different return on investments; and just as health, education, profits, housing, economic and political opportunities, are not equally nor equitably distributed in a society, the suffering emanating from reforms can’t also be expected to be distributed equally or equitably in a society. Too bad the world is not a fair place.
Instead of strikes and lockdowns, traders and businesses should adopt better ways of influencing policy. Quite often the business elite – the top 5-10 players of an industry – complain that their voices and their concerns were not heard; instead the government only spoke to the association that’s usually held by smaller players. Well, is it the governments’ fault that private sector is unable to organise itself via chambers and associations in a professional manner? (See BR Research’s Empty Chambers? Jan 1, 2016)
The fact of the matter is that these chambers and associations are ill-funded and poorly organised, which impairs their ability to make a coherent case in a civilised manner. Quite often, they don’t have basic estimates of the market size of their own industries; nor do they have professionally drafted evidence-based reports to voice their concerns about policy and governance. Granted that businesses these days are fond of citing World Bank’s doing business rankings as ‘research’, but that’s mostly because of the flawed World Bank-led hype has made Doing Business appear to be the top issue.
Some businessmen complaint about bribery and other forms of corruption by FBR and by other government officials. And rightly so; FBR and other government departments are no bastion of honesty. Then again, if traders and businessmen are really such puritans who are forced into bribery, can anyone recall even one a single series of strikes and lockdowns by the traders and business community against persistent bribes and corruption by FBR and other government officials.
If Khan and his team are corrupt and cannot deliver on their promises in a few years, then they should be thrown out of government as should be the fate of any corrupt or inefficient governors. But let there be no doubt that it takes two to tango, and private sector has tangoed much with corrupt government machinery for years. Flying invoices are not a work of fiction!
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