- Planning Commission assessment brings no joy for government
Centralised planning of the national economy is a hugely complicated exercise, marrying vision and goals to the existing circumstances and future requirements, setting realistic output targets based on sound economic analysis, availability of accurate statistical data, and above all, political will and drive. The Five Year Plans of the Soviet Union (1928-32) and People’s Republic of China (1958-61) were the stepping stones that transformed these two then backward nations from wretched poverty into modern industrial giants, though at great human cost, but then the architects behind them were Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. In fact, all production targets of the USSR’s First Five year Plan were achieved in just four years and three months!
But in Pakistan’s case, with none of the above conditions being met (especially the leadership element) regression and not progress is the sour harvest reaped in its 11th Five Year Plan (2013-18), as the Planning Commissions’ internal evaluation reveals government failure in meeting all crucial financial, production, structural and social sector goals across the economic spectrum, even in key areas as power generation, that hold electoral appeal. Considering the country’s enormous natural resources and human potential, gigantic inputs of the CPEC, the massive foreign borrowings since 2013, this dismal performance points first and foremost to gross mismanagement and neglect, an inability or unwillingness to manage the dull detail of administration that dedicated leadership entails. The litany of shortfall failures includes among others, average GDP growth (4.4 instead of target of 5.4 percent), agriculture (2.1/3.5 percent), industrial output (5.1/6.3 percent), services (5/5.8 percent), large-scale manufacturing (4.3/6 percent), national savings to GDP ratio (13.1/21.3 percent), Exports ($20.4 billion/$29.5 billion), while the only areas showing dubious ‘growth’ are the alarming Current Account deficit (4/1.2 percent), fiscal deficit (5.5 percent of GDP/3.5) and Imports ($53.5 billion/$51.1 billion), while social sector targets such as childbirth, infant and child mortality, literacy rate, potable water access, though showing relative improvement, all miss the bull’s eye. Pakistan’s economic ‘Great Leap Forward’ will only be possible with harnessing resources diligently, careful thought and brainstorming, reform -minded ministers, adherence to laid-down policies, and transparency.