The rising cost of living and corruption

Since it is not unusual so I would not label it as news, but the matter of fact is that almost 50 per cent of Pakistanis did not buy sacrificial animals this Eid. Not because they had lost interest in religion but the hefty cost that has come to accompany the obligation has gone too far out of the reach of an ordinary person. Many did not perform the ritual while most opted for the sharing arrangements wherein seven people share a cow or fourteen share a camel. The cost of meat selling at Rs600 per kg has too become a reference point for the sellers in pricing animals. Similarly high cost of transportation owing to expensive petroleum products and a troubling supply and demand equation have factored in to become reasons for high priced animals in the market. However, keeping in view the religious obligation attached to this sacred ritual, provincial governments would have had devised a strategy to make sacrificial animals available, accessible and affordable to a common folk. The prices of goats and sheep had increased with price of `A’ category goat or sheep surging from Rs20,000 to Rs35,000. The price of `B’ category had increased from Rs15,000 to Rs25,000 and `C’ category to Rs12,000 and above. A cow had a price tag of Rs80,000, and a category cow comes somewhere around Rs150,000. Since we are not taking into account the “status mania syndrome” therefore, talking about 500,000 cow or goat named “Bodyguard” or “Shela” makes little sense. We, in Pakistan, make commodities intrigue by inflating their prices hyperbolically through things unimaginable for country having nuclear arsenal in its repertoire. Look what have we done with the prices of sugar, urea wheat and God knows what not? Businesses cannot run efficiently when the variable costs keep shifting or for that matter when prices of input become a constant nag. This leaves little room for the company to think about innovation or development, since that too requires stability or for that matter some cooling off period.

Price hike

A country without light, without airplanes, without railroad, without gas and without clean cricketers, is a perfect case of failure and classlessness. Drones and corruption has come to rule Pakistan today – interestingly, both killing the poor and benefiting the rich. It is interesting to note that corruption is costing Pakistan $2 billion annually. The perception cost is another story that has almost put Pakistan on the back burner as far as doing business in Pakistan is concerned.
The very immediate effect of corruption comes in the form of price hike. We have seen this happening during the wheat crises in 2008, sugar crisis 2009 and now urea crisis brewing on the horizon in 2011. One is surprised to learn that in 32 years the price of urea grew Rs750 per bag, but it just took 24 months to add another Rs1060 to it to bring the cost of single urea bag to Rs1800. There is a common agreement to the fact that Pakistan has one of the finest urea manufacturing infrastructures in the world with an equally remarkable surplus production capacity – and yet there is shortage! Although the monster identified is the ministry of Energy and Mineral resources that has imposed gas curtailment plan on the industry even after promising uninterrupted gas supply round the year; nonetheless the blackmailers in the garb of hoarders could not be ruled out as well. Price differential between provinces is another factor that has made urea an intriguing commodity.

Corruption the price shooter

Corruption eats not only into the fibres of moral lives but takes the best out of the social lives as well. Being contagious, it transmits itself to others flawlessly, especially to the one, with a weak moral immunity. Though, one has to have a real hard shell to assimilate the indignity packaged in corruption, the easy instalment of perks and privileges stringed to corruption, makes the journey interesting and endurable. Throughout our history we have had enough of these hard shelled people and entities, rendering us a faceless nation in the global arena. Watching the analysis over the incapacitation of the cricketer trio comprising Salman Butt, Muhammed Asif and Amir, one narration that kept leaping into every analysis was the corrupt leadership of Pakistan that has turned the country into a pit of darkness, with the result that flouting rules becomes a piece of cake for an ordinary folk. Like a stab through the heart, one could not do much, not even curse the anchor or the participant, the reality is so sharp and unmistakable. More than anything, corruption is always a top bottom phenomenon, giving enough reasons to the poor living on the margin, to buy corruption on the pretext of deprivation powerlessness and economic seclusion. Corruption brings economic seclusion. It widens the gap between people, putting them into the category of haves and haves not. It transforms the population equation by making top 20 or bottom 20 a staggering divisional stratagem.

Rich country of poor people

Imran Khan began his speech on that eventful day of, 30th October 2011, with a very important note; he reminded all of us that it is the locomotive of good intention that takes any cause to its desirable conclusion. With this he went on to stir our conscious on a reality saddled with liabilities; that Pakistan is not a poor country, supporting his argument by all those glorious estimation of the reservoirs – copper, gold, coal, and gas – of Pakistan waiting to be tapped to change the fate of this country. The argument, though had nothing new about it, but given the baggage of corruption lugged on each of us, without our choice, the anticipation of not being poor and only poorly led, has come like a fresh breeze. At this point one is disposed to think and think hard that why do we have to face a serious energy crisis at the cost of our creativity, productivity and development, when we are not, by divine or by the design of our fate, resource deficient. It is a serious concern! The same goes with the food crisis according to the Asian Development Bank Food Price Index for Pakistan has increased 100 per cent in eight years. In 2001 the index was at 100, it reached 216 in 2009. With prices up by 45 percent from the previous two years, food inflation has shot up more than 20 per cent in the last six months. Again a serious concern given the agri-based society and infrastructure we have and the resources that we possess.

Let the poor foot the bill

What happens when light goes out… stagnation. This is the right word that comes to our mind not because it best describes the situation one faces but because this is what really happens. All our activities stop progressing, stop adding value or just jet get locked into the cobweb of policy failures, policy lapses and policy interventions of somebody just not bothered by the crisis as it inflicts the poor. As a result the level of productivity has hit an all-time low.
We talk, lament and get worried about electricity crisis that Pakistan is going through with the consequence of having our industry almost closed or near closure. The results of this marginal blackout has grown so ugly that a major chunk from the formal economy has moved into the informal one to
reduce the cost of production by cutting on fixed costs and by getting away from the minimum wage and legal tax burden. The onus of all this twist falls on the poor – with minimum wages, no social security and more blackmailing. It is all about mismanagement, skewed priorities and indifference. I am told that WAPDA’s feasibilities on new viable and practical projects are gathering dust for a long time. “There is absolutely no dearth of electricity in this county, if there is dearth, it is of political will, and clean intentions. Even WAPDA could produce cheap electricity using gas, but unfortunately the romanticism with growth and development could never take the true flight,” said Dr Noor Mohammad, Magistrate WAPDA. “I am at pain to find the big fishes enjoying the crisis at the cost of the poor who are burdened not only with unnecessarily high-priced electricity but the liabilities of line losses, actually incurred by the well-to-do people, are passed on to them as well.” As a result, the crux of the matter is that corruption is bad not because it makes the system stink, but because it makes somebody rich at the expense of others. People lose opportunities, they miss chances and are elbowed out from the big picture of the society. It is said that the administrative cost of PIA, Steel Mill and Pakistan Railways is inexorably high and the punishing factor is the excess employment given to people not made for the job. Employment, used as an instrument of obligation, has not only blighted the aforementioned industries but had taken the chance from many, actually deserving the jobs to prove themselves. It’s the worst kind of apartheid. Missing on religious obligations may not count much, given the level of corruption we are living in, but it does show that we have lost the true taste in life.