Reflecting a trademark paucity of wisdom and lack of political will
In my last column in this publication, I had said that “the happenings of the first few weeks and the quality of the team members the new leadership selects to undertake a challenging task will determine the extent of relief that can be legitimately expected. Anything can happen, anything can be!”
Two important things have happened since then: the federal cabinet has been announced and so has been the budget for the fiscal year 2013-14. Much can be read into the two developments in terms of the continuation of the old mindset and its attendant manifestations.
First, there are hardly any new faces in the federal cabinet that has been sworn in. The old bunch of tried and tested stalwarts who have traditionally sworn allegiance of personal loyalty to the House of the Sharifs has been handed down the task of extricating Pakistan out of a plethora of crises. Their calibre and expertise are not a secret to those teeming millions who have suffered at their hands in the past, be it their finance minister, or their energy minister, or their interior minister. Stretching generosity to the extreme, their previous tenures can at best be dubbed as mediocre if not downright pedestrian. The lavish spending spree to satiate princely proclivities that were incongruous with the overall national development paradigm is still fresh in people’s minds. Are we in for another humiliating foray into the realm of the known and the predictable which, in essence, will be out of sync with the crying national needs?
Out of the sixteen federal ministers, twelve are from Punjab, two from Sindh and one each from Balochistan and KPK. Out of the nine ministers of state, as many as seven are from Punjab and one each from Sindh and Balochistan while there is no representation for KPK. Over all, out of the twenty-five ministers who have been sworn in, nineteen – a wobbly seventy-six percent – are from Punjab, the Sharifs’ bastion of power, and only six represent the other three provinces. This corresponds fairly with the PML-N vote bank: a disproportionate ninety percent from Punjab alone and less than ten percent from the rest of the country. So, in actual effect, the federal government would be an extension and perpetuation of the interests of Punjab. This can have a predominantly negative impact in the long run in a federation where the traditional linkage between the centre and at least three of the existing federating units and between these federating units and Punjab has been extremely tenuous. Add to that the disturbing thought that the former East-Pakistan (now Bangladesh) separated from the mainland for, among other reasons, the perceived dominance of the Punjabis. This aspect should have been debated extensively and intensively before announcing the cabinet. But, because of lack of any meaningful support for PML-N outside Punjab, and because the party leadership depends more on personal allegiance than any commitment to the national cause, a predominantly ‘Punjabi’ cabinet has been announced to handle the national affairs which could be mortally painful for the burgeoning democratic polity.
The budget that has been unveiled reflects a lack of political will that has traditionally been the reason for accumulating the economic woes of the country. If the task had been given to any section officer in the ministry of finance, he would have come up with a matching tabulation of facts and recommendations, if not better. The political leadership was expected to have shown some maturity, courage, initiative and innovation in the context of battling the gruesome financial difficulties and making an earnest effort to ease the life of the common person. That has not happened. Instead, the stress is on continuing with the traditional permutations and combinations that would, in the short run, impose further burden on the poor people vide the additional one percent collected through GST and, in the long run, necessitate a visit to the international lending organisations including the IMF.
There is no concrete plan announced either for easing the grave energy situation. The finance minister has vowed to eliminate the entire circular debt in sixty days, but no way has been outlined to raise Rs. 500 billion to do so. Can raising funds through issuing treasury bills remedy the ailment, or will it assuage the symptoms alone for the disease to take over again? In spite of conceding that the cost of living has gone up during the last year, no matching relief has been provided to the government servants. There is no effort to expand the tax net probably because it would affect the PML-N supporters – the ones with ill-gotten cash stashed up in their accounts within the country and abroad. Education has been taxed. Petrol prices have gone up. Cost of electricity, or whatever remains of the commodity, will increase. There is no initiative to tax the agricultural income and there is also no move to bring under the tax net such services that still lie outside the domain including the stock exchanges. And where and how are the funds going to be raised to undertake the massive development programme outlined in the budget document mostly confined to the roads and highways – another proclivity of the Sharif mindset? More loans?
Two hurdles across, it appears that the Sharifs are stuck with the mindset of their previous two stints in power. The necessary political will to address the grave issues the country is faced with is woefully missing. The urgent need was for taking difficult decisions now that would benefit the country in the long run. The PML-N had the numerical strength to do so and push its initiatives through the parliament. This has not been done.
Continuing with an unprecedented deficit budget does not provide a solution. The choice was between choosing a path that would raise substantial revenue by taxing those sections of the society that could afford to pay more or were not paying at all, or those poor people who were already overburdened with the labour of life. By opting for the latter, the PML-N leadership has chosen a path that is neither propitious for the country nor for its own long-term survival in the government. A-bit-from-here and a-bit-from-there effort is no longer relevant. Hard decisions needed to be taken. The rich and the mighty – the likes of the Sharifs – needed to pay more to the state. By leaving them out, and by subjecting the toiling poor of the country to further unbearable burden, the PML-N leadership has shown a trademark paucity of wisdom and a lack of political will.
The writer is a political analyst. He can be reached at [email protected]
