The economic decision-making is becoming murkier by the day. Why so? The political system that has been out of mainstream economics is trying to grab what it can and the consequences are damned. Not only are they not concerned with what is happening in the economic situation but also what in the process will happen to them.
The bureaucracy finds itself helpless for those that want to defy the absolute powers of the political system find themselves be sidelined before long no matter how good or bad they may be. The relationship on loyalty aside the loyalty factor can be mitigated by negotiated settlements. The fact that political system needs to go forward and that conflict of interest has to be contained by a self censorship system is not even considered by the political system.
The cost of this alien performance is not even quantifiable. The cost of loyalty is even worse for the top man. The political bosses get it from their party loyalists. Some of them may not be party loyalists but may be hangers on who have some how hitched a ride with the power base. Decision-making requires a person with a perception that is much larger than what our policymakers have.
The issues are equally bad in the provinces as they are in the federal government. The setback came with the way the Ehtesab and the NAB programmes were run and the way corruption was defined. Corruption only came to the fore when the enemy was to be taught a lesson and then all kinds of wild allegations were made and the opposing individual was made to pay.
In Pakistan the balance for this has to be restored and by all means catch hold of what you may define as corrupt but if the allegations are incorrect and the individual is set free then the government and/or the whistleblower is to pay adequate compensation to the aggrieved victim[s]. His reputation had been tarnished and his life had been upset by a series of wild and unsubstantiated statements that a yellow press likes to play for the sake of blackmail.
Yellow journalism was supposed to be set right by the institutions that the newspapers were to create as part of a self corrective system. This has not happened. That did not mature and blackmail persists. The impact of that will be dealt with separately. But I promise you that glaring acts of blackmail would be exposed if a law of torts is established. The press has a right to blow the whistle but it does not have the right to be perverted in that right. In fact, a corrective press is a blessing and a definitive requirement of the governing process.
That the loss of courage is reflected in the current bureaucracy is not too difficult to understand. The negative stand and the inability to govern with equity are common amongst the unscrupulous. With it has come about a considerable degree of persons who are bent upon a quick buck. They have thrown all caution and censorship system to the wind. The consequences for the economy are horrendous.
Every now and then we have a meaningless reminder in the press of the number of projects and the cost to be incurred with the assumption being that once these projects are started everything will be better. The rookies see it as if the government is on the roll. If we were to examine the role of the planners during these periods of tyrannical powers then we will see how preferences were given to those that belonged to the power bloc of the time.
The Chinese projects and the agreements by themselves would have done wonders but for the fact that these projects are now in a limbo. The outcome is in jeopardy as the doers are no longer in position. The commitments made on the basis of the MoUs are no longer the priority of the institutions that were supposed to have worked on the interventions signed by the highest authorities of the countries of China and Pakistan.
There is much more at stake here for the cost to the economy or the loss which is difficult to assess but it must have gone in to billions of dollars. No project seems to deliver its objectives. The aspects of the economy that is under scrutiny are the utilities for these are the cause of inflation at the moment. With crude oil going the way it is there is a need to understand that Pakistan has immense available resources where bio-fuels can be grown without the cost to food security.
In fact, this would have happened but for the MNCs that would not allow the interventions to take place. My own calculations at that time indicated that the bio-fuel would be sold at Rs 8 per litre. That would have taken care of the inflationary tendencies that may have been there. The governments of Balochistan, Sindh and Punjab had allocated land for this purpose.
The spilloffs were there and about ten thousand jobs would have been created for the poor in each of the provinces, besides the promise of health and educational facilities. The Pakistani expatriates that were helping us in the process went and met the big brass and that was the end of the project.
Come to gas and the CEO of one of them made a substantial gift to LUMS where the poorest of the poor go. He was so charitable that the poorest institution in the country was helped. May we go further and examine how a private sector company made an allocation to the powerful people of the Musharraf regime and allocated a minimal of 5 tonnes of gas. This gas was then converted to commercial use and the net profit per day was Rs 5 lakh. The fact that the CEO was in the hands of NAB I am sure made no difference. Mafia prevails in this country at the expense of the poor.
Come to examine their billboards and you will see the exorbitant cost that is incurred on the placement. The rentier class reaps the benefits at the expense of the ordinary person. The users cannot do a damn about it. The salaries and the cost structures of all these creations have to be checked and rechecked and made the subject of public announcement. There is virtually no check on their performance payments. They have yet to understand the concept of self censorship. The legislature has to get in to action if the economy is to deliver sensibly.
The economy will be the subject of much debate in the coming months and the powerful lobby will try to shift the blame and the causes not to themselves but on to others. One way to stop this is to ask them to give proposals about themselves and not to point fingers at others. In other words, poachers cannot be preachers. This will mean that I will be treading on toes that are powerful but so what? Life begins later.