- The promise versus performance
The PTI will be completing the first year of its tenure tomorrow. It is time to take account of its perceived achievements and failures.
Two million jobs and 200,000 houses per year were required to fulfil the promise of 10 million jobs and one million homes in five years. While tens of thousands of people have lost jobs, not a single new residential unit has been built so far. The party considers a handful of ‘Panah Gahs’ a major achievement. Other steps paraded as landmarks include E-visa extension and visa on arrival, which have no bearing on the life of the people of this country. That no financial scandal involving government high ups has been reported is also presented as a remarkable feat.
Within eight months of coming to power a clueless PTI government fired its own financial wizards, handing over the country’s economic management to the IMF’s team which is least bothered about the impact of its policies on the life of the common man. The people are consequently suffering under the impact of rising prices and inflated gas and electricity bills. The government’s economic policies have pushed tens of thousands below the poverty line.
The PTI government took political polarisation to an unprecedented height in the very first year of its rule. It goaded NAB to arrest opponents even when no offense had been proved against them in a court of law. The arrest of former PM Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, former Finance Minister Miftah Ismail and PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz are some of the cases that prove that malice was the motive behind the arrests.
Free speech has been suppressed, TV channels pulled off-air without due process, newspapers pressurised to ban columnists and baseless treason cases filed to silence the media.
The government has squandered the opportunity provided to it by the Trump Administration’s urgency to quit Afghanistan. The government has played its cards badly. Instead of supporting Pakistan’s Kashmir stand, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s message on August 14 underlines the need to build on the important commitments made during recent visit by Prime Minister Imran Khan and the senior leadership of the Government of Pakistan. Back to do more, Pakistan.