Empty rhetoric of Charter of Economy
Fresh from his recent personal triumph of a relatively peaceful Budget speech without opposition walkouts and theatrics, the Finance Minister was emboldened to pull a rabbit out of his hat by calling upon political parties to evolve a unanimous economic perspective under his ‘Vision 2018-23’ to generate a ‘higher, inclusive and sustainable’ growth in the next five years. There was the usual bombastic talk of sustainability, attainment of socio-economic goals and macroeconomic stability, meaningless terms when seen in the light of the potentially terminal state of the ailing economy, so precariously poised amid a swarm of negative indicators.
Somewhat immodestly, the minister further stated he had already presented five years vision in the 2017 budget, whatever that means, and the grand economic consensus should be best achieved before next year’s general election. Considering the hydra-headed problems besetting the economy, the logical result of four years of neglect, ad hoc, unfocussed policies and indecisive political will, it is highly unlikely that anyone will fall in the trap. Remember the once much- trumpeted but now dead as a dodo Charter of Democracy? With the government and the opposition eternally engaged in unprofitable strife as a ‘normal’ in our political culture, the appeal for an economic accord is indeed fantasizing on a grand scale, a remote pipe-dream.
The government cannot evade its responsibility in not putting the economic house in order on its watch. Tax base remains ridiculously narrow, backbone inward remittances and exports have declined by billions of dollars, imports are touching record heights or depths, which is being peddled as an achievement, load shedding remains rampant and energy infrastructure is such that the slightest breeze or drops of rain are enough to disrupt consumer supply. And there is the mountain of ever- snowballing debt, foreign and domestic, due to the government’s short- cut policy of borrowing left right and centre at high rates for short terms. Austerity is a word alien to the economic wizards, but self-imposed austerity is better than the humiliating one imposed by ruthless lenders, as in Greece.
