It does not reflect too well on relevant ministries that the prime minister – furious at ‘slow pace of utilisation’ of ADB financing facility – was reduced to advocating the common-sense approach of finalising specifics of crucial projects prior to negotiating funding. Also, it’s no less strange that finance minister Dr Sheikh’s nuggets of wisdom regarding prioritisation and development strategy, while spot on, are blatantly missing from his ministry’s own work ethic. That the said $2.9 billion funding related to 22 energy and highway projects further confounds the government’s position, betraying an inexcusable disregard for the country’s most pressing problems.
The system is in disarray. When ministers and secretaries draw embarrassing blanks before the prime minister regarding projects of vital national economic importance, something is rotten to the core. If such a situation develops when the country is mired in chronic stagflation, and debilitating energy shortage has come close to igniting public fury time and again, the government’s ineptitude is unacceptable.
The responsibility rests with the highest offices in Islamabad not just because of nuances concerning burden of command and responsibility. Rather, the usual habit of stuffing crucial positions with political appointees, long the hallmark of Pakistan’s experiment with democracy, has risen to unprecedented levels in the last three-or-so years. It is, therefore, no coincidence that the present administration has presided over one of the most unattended downturns in our history.
It’s not that Pakistan is without the necessary ingredients for halting its rapid economic deterioration. It’s that the right players are just not moving the right pieces on the board at the right time. In an era rapidly characterised by monumental and meaningful public mobilisation – facebook and twitter facilitated the fall of Mubarak’s 31-year regime in Egypt – the public will take strong notice of such negligence. And with polls not too far away, the government’s position, as indicated by its performance on crucial issues, is precarious.
