All guns were trained at him. Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif’s recent announcement that his government would not accept foreign aid triggered a flurry of criticism with skeptics accusing him of indulging in doublespeak and populist politics to save his party’s eroding votebank.
The decision taken at the provincial cabinet’s meeting raised some valid questions: Will all the foreign-aided projects in the province be abandoned? What are the domestic resources the government has planned to tap to fill the gap with no aid coming in to finance the budget deficit?
So, when these questions remained unanswered there was more criticism and no appreciation. But just because he doesn’t know how to go about it doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t be pleading for self-reliance. Mian Shahbaz’s problem, apart from running a province with a cash crunch, is that his bureaucratic team is incompetent and lacks financial management.
It should have provided concrete suggestions to the CM to defend his statement about breaking the begging bowl before briefing the media. In the subsequent interaction with editors and newspaper columnists Mian Shahbaz spent much time explaining that it was only the US aid that would be unacceptable while there would be no bar on ‘gifts’ and grants coming from friendly countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran China and Japan.
Yet he wasn’t clear as to what would be the mechanism to make up for the gap created by the cancellation of the MoUs worth $ 200 million the Punjab government had signed with the US. This aid spread over three years was to be spent on various health and education projects across the province. Four special committees have been constituted to deliberate the issue and furnish their recommendations to the government before the next budget.
So far, there has been no explanation whether the Punjab government would do away with such projects as Danish schools which have no other purpose than showcasing the CM’s penchant for promoting education by setting up a chain of ‘Aitchisons for the poor’ across the province. Some of the officers who remained associated with this project believe it’s merely a political ploy that will turn out to be the biggest scandal against this government.
But those who act as the CM’s eyes and ears either lack the courage to tell their boss that it’s no use wasting money on such a useless project or perhaps they are convinced that this is how it should be. The opposition keeps raising a valid question: how can a government champion the cause of literacy which doesn’t have a full-time education minister with the excise minister holding additional charge of this important portfolio. You can’t expect Mian Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman to tell the CM that the government should focus on the development of public sector education rather than indulging in populist rhetoric!
Similarly there has been no one in the cabinet or among senior bureaucrats to challenge the Chief Minister’s wisdom of running the Punjab on a huge overdraft, touching a Rs 70 billion mark, just because he had spent millions of rupees from the provincial exchequer on winning public support through ill-advised policies like sasti roti scheme or such other projects. Some lessons should have been learnt when these so-called measures to help those living in abject poverty failed to produce desired results.
One shouldn’t doubt the CM’s intentions when he says that it is time for those in authority to get serious about how the public money should be spent. Maybe he understands that his notion of belt-tightening can be misconstrued as a warning to the poor and the downtrodden to prepare themselves for hard times ahead unless the ruling elite gives up its ostentatious lifestyle. It has to change its spendthrift policies and try to lead by example.
That said, the Punjab government is still a long way from achieving self-reliance. The biggest challenge for it is to reform the provincial tax regime and improve financial discipline. Immediate steps will have to be taken to plug pilferages in the land revenue collection that will in turn reduce the province’s reliance on the federal government. One fails to understand why the Punjab’s ruling leadership is reluctant to bring the agriculture income in the tax net which experts believe can become a sustainable resource for development.
The PML(N) leadership needs to keep in mind that it can help the nation on the path to self-reliance by supporting the proposed economic reforms rather than letting politics dictate economic policies.
The writer is Executive Editor, Pakistan Today
It's well-written piece!
Shahbaz as Messiah of Hope
It is with reference to a Column of Sarmad Bashir “No lessons learnt?” which published on May 22, 2011.
I would like to comment that it is written with one-sided, biased approach- a usual feature of Pakistani journalists who lack necessary understanding and cosmopolitan view of things around. Trouble with such vernacular journalists is that they prefer to live in a world of myopic ideas. Same is the case with this piece of writing. The ‘learned’ writer needs to know that daanish school system is the unique project which will be funded by our own resources and its recurring expenditures will be borne out through endowment fund. I believe that all such opposing forces of DSS in fact want that poor children living in remote hinterlands may not get quality education and they remain victim of poverty and hostage to local feudal. Similarly, Punjab is not touching Rs. 70 billion overdraft as told by the columnist. It’s totally wrong figure. Shuja ur Rehman is doing good job as minister for education even if he is having additional charge of it. Punjab’s working is praised by Transparency International and I salute Mian Shahbaz Sharif for launching projects like sasti roti, DSS, green tractor scheme etc for the poor. He is the last ‘Messiah of Hope’ for the poor of Pakistan.
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