A Dismal Performance!

It was certainly a dismal performance on the part of the newly elected president of Pakistan in his first formal exposure to the media. His round-about and inane answers to the grave national issues prove the fact that either he lacked the vision to perceive the intensity of the crisis the country was going through or else he was not serious on finding their true and promised remedies. His only answer to the economic meltdown was to raise the purchase price of wheat. Any one as the head of a revolutionary political party that has reached the helm after a long time of wait, struggle and hibernation should have unfolded a revolutionary charter comprising a host of radical measures to buoy up the rapidly sinking economy. It should have started from insistence on writing off of Pakistan’s astronomical debt by powerful coalition partners against war on terror as a compensation for our participation in that otherwise wholly unjustified war.

Secondly, he should have dilated on modernizing the mauled, primitive and poor infrastructure such as roads and, airports and highways. He should have talked of the incentives to be given to the prospective investors in both native and foreign. He should have also talked about the radical modernization of our railway and other transportation systems for easy and timely flow of goods, raw material and humans between the destinations.

He should have mentioned the setting up of new industries for local production of goods that are imported by paying the precious foreign exchange. He should have declared removal of complicated red tape and hard to follow regulations for establishing industries in Pakistan. By way of example he should have mentioned the Chinese model by which they created four industrial zones in 90s with all possible inputs and facilities besides tax exemptions to spur and inspire the growth of industrial at a rapid speed. As a result Chinese growth rate has gone up to 14 per cent. The president could have talked of water and power and access roads and the measures to ensure the interrupted provision of these basic inputs not only to the industrial sector but also to the people at large.

About agricultural sector, the chairman of a revolutionary party should have announced banishing of big land holdings and distributing them to the landless peasants. He should have asked the government agencies and investors to set up agriculture based industries and for making farm related inputs such as fertilizers so that there is no dearth of these in the country besides their being abundantly available at affordable prices.

The reinvigoration of economy is related to good governance and a transparent system of revenue collection and taxation regime. There is massive and chronic corruption in all facets of the management of economy in that the bureaucrats and officials serve the interest of the mercantile and big business classes more than the nation. A very strong person with impeccable character and unblemished profile is needed to remove the lacunas that have been at the roots of the economic mess now in high gear.

From the first press conference of Asif Zardari it is quite evident that he is less enthusiastic about removal of 58/2- B from the constitution as well as doing away with the harmful clauses of 17th amendment. Before presidential election, Mr. Zardari had categorically declared that the first thing he would be doing after taking over as the President of Pakistan was to give the gift of abolition of 58/2-B to the nation.

About insurgency he had a very strange logic to put forward. He said that the cross border ground or air assaults by the coalition forces cannot be halted as these actions were covered by the United Naions’s resolution. Such a queer stand has also been voiced by Pakistan’s defense minister. These contentions run counter to the PPP stalwarts’ oft repeated slogans that they would, concurrently, pursue a policy of negotiations with the militants rather than entirely depending on the use of military force.

The abysmal social sector has not been touched either by the president nor PPP’s government. People reel under extremely woeful and inhuman living condition in that filth, mad traffic, day light robberies, highhandedness of police, scarcity of food and basic necessities of life, malnutrition, , bribes and corruption, frequent power outrages and countless other social and civic deformities have engulfed the society. The understaffed and mismanaged hospitals and schools and other public institutions look like white elephants. The government and the presidency seem to be visibly blurred as judged by their performance thus far, about the stupendous national maladies and their amelioration. They have not laid-out their policy and plans, barring vague promises and meaningless rhetorical statements, as to how they would be cleaning these Augean stables. Where are the fruits of democracy?