- Government’s vindictiveness adds complications
The way the IMF’s representatives have been allowed to implement the adjustment, has not only made the common man cry out but also led industry to near collapse. Running the businesses is becoming increasingly untenable on account of rising costs and falling sales. In September inflation jumped to 11.4 pc while early this week a further hike was allowed in the electricity tariff by 83 paisa per unit. Factors like high debt service costs, rising costs of inputs and a collapsing market have taken the toll of industry.
PTI chief Imran Khan was catapulted into power amidst euphoria created by party songs promising the moon and tributary slogans celebrating the party leader as a Messiah. The PTI leadership had simplistic answers to complex economic issues. Failures of unrealistic policies led a panicked leadership to go after bureaucrats considered close to the previous government with the result that files continued to pile up as government servants avoided taking decisions.
On the one side the PTI government maintains that the NAB is independent while on the other it has continued to egg it on to act more forcibly against political opponents, concentrating on fewer cases and punishing them at the earliest. As governments make policies that affect businessmen and government departments award them contracts, a number of industrialists who were supposed to have been beneficiaries are also being investigated by NAB, spreading panic in the community. This too has added to the tribulations of the industrialists.
A group of industrialists met the COAS as he is a member of the Pakistan Business Council. They were referred to the Prime Minister who has promised to set up a committee to resolve their reservations. But unless the PTI leadership changes its vindictive mindset there is going to be little improvement in the situation. Those in the bureaucracy who are reluctant to take decisions because of the fear of NAB must not be treated as agents of the PPP or PML-N. Businessmen who signed contracts with the previous government should not be summoned by NAB. Character assassination of those in the media who are critical of government policies has to stop.
