Punjab government has accumulated Rs 447 billion debts in wheat business alone, in buying the wheat, storing wheat and selling wheat over past ten years, Punjab Finance Minister Makhdoom Hashim Jawan Bakhat said here on Wednesday.
Addressing the Pakistan Leadership Conversation jointly organized by the Association of Certified Chartered Accountant (ACCA) and British council, he said that in the entire process of wheat business, the beneficiary is probably 10 percent only, while most of the money went in refinancing of the debt stocks, towards banking sector, storage, pilferage and the wheat procurement objective of benefiting the farmers was never achieved.
However, the minister said this year the government has significantly brought it down by plugging in the inefficiencies of the system. "We believed in increasing the role of private sector while government's role is just of a facilitator. So when we talk about ease of doing business, it is more about the World Bank ranking", he said. However, the government has looked at it with more holistic approach. First time in Punjab, the government is looking into each and every regulation with business orientation, he added.
"Each department is tasked to look into each and every regulation, law and has established certain standardized measures whether these laws and regulations are business friendly or not. It is necessary to filter all rules and regulations and come up with smaller number of rules and regulations viable for business promotion", the finance minister said.
Hashim Jawan said the government was also looking into its main resource generating items. "Punjab is province of land and we have to unlock the potential of cities for revenue generation", by providing ease of doing business, growth stimulus will move towards the private sector.
The minister believed that the role of the private sector is to lead from the front and the government's primary role was that of the facilitator to the private sector. Government engine could not absorb the million jobs and youth of the nation, rather the private sector can give employment to them, he said. For government it will ensure the facilitation process up to the mark to achieve the double digit growth in which all the policies should be business friendly, he added.