Democracy, Debts and Development!
Every time you sink into your chair to write something positive about civilian governments, over the years in Pakistan, you find it difficult to gather your thoughts and paint a picture worth looking at.
Pakistan, a self-sufficient country, has grossly become dependent on foreign aid and debts that’s been secured holding a hat to the world; not for development purposes at least. Inthe first four decades, after its inception, Pakistan’s GDP growth rate, especially under the influence of heavy boots, kept increasing gradually and even touched 9%, which now is merely hovering around 4%, according to the Federal Bureau of Statistics. Depressingly, none of the democratic governments in the last thirty years have been able to maintain the same momentum as they seemed busy consuming most of their energies saving democracy and flourishing their own businesses.
During the lifespan of the country thus far, instead of making best use of the available resources, the self-centered politicians successfully turned national institutions into a kettle of fish and industries into a remarkable museum of our promising past-generously as a relief to the people who voted them into power and to be able to boast about it in the future election campaigns. It’s the politicians and the governments of the last three decades of the country that has hit Pakistan more severely than the economic recession, poverty, terrorism or any other plagues combined. We lost $100 billion alone in the war against terror in the last fifteen years but are oblivious to whopping $12 billion loss every day through economic terrorism, corruption and tax evasion, since the last many years according to Transparency International Pakistan (TIP) and National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
During the tenure of PPP government, debts and liabilities went through the roof and touched the zenith; just in five years, they performed so well that they were able to collect twice as much as what was accumulated during the first six decades of Pakistan’s independence as debt. Aforementioned indicator is one of the major reasons that PPP is hopeful of regaining its popularity, which they lost during ZAB’s era because of his hostile anti-Pakistan policies, as with this money they were able to put Pakistan’s economy on track and were able to almost eradicate poverty and achieve 100% percent literacy.
With the arrival of Sharif’s for the third time, things were expected to improve considerably; with the pace of developments they have achieved and dreams of chasing rainbows expressed they are undeniably expected to outclass their predecessors by a huge margin before the end of their tenure. Having sworn in for only two years now, PMLN has played a massive role in creating job opportunities for the unemployed citizens by taking debt on each Pakistani from Rs75, 000 to Rs100, 000+, overcoming the crisis of 25 million out-of-school children in Pakistan through two mega metro bus projects only in Punjab of worth Rs100 billion is definitely few of the things to write home about.
In last seven years of democratic governments Pakistan’s debts/liabilities have gone from Rs 6.6 billion to Rs 19.2 billion with a rapid increase of 300% which commensurate with the kind of improvement that has happened overall in Pakistan; uninterrupted electricity supply to the households, industries, strengthening institutions, eradicating corruption from bureaucracy and police departments and mass transits of massive 90km of length worth shouldering the load of commuters in the whole country.
In the face of nerve-wrecking turmoil, convoluted economic, political and justice system common man’s last hope to hang in with remains the fact that Pakistan is an agricultural country and has a lot of domestic resources to pull itself anytime out of the quagmire of debts soon. Nuclear Scientist Dr. Samar Mubarakmand, a few years ago said “Pakistan is extremely rich in minerals especially coal, copper and gold and what it needs is indigenous technology for exploitation of these resources.” He also talked about trillions of dollars gold and copper reserves in Baluchistan that could turn things around for us. And also DrMurtaza Mughal, once president of Pakistan Economy Watch,has been reported saying that Pakistan’s coal reserves, worth $25 trillion, can not only meet the electricity requirements of the country for next 100 years but can also save almost $4 billion dollars in staggering oil import bills.Overwhelmingly, only just 2% of Thar coal can produce 20,000 Mega Watts of electricity for the next 40 years without any single second of load shedding; imagine the kind of Pakistan we can build with what we have.
Why couldn’t we bring our country up to speed with the nations who came into being after us? All roads and questions lead us to a jigsaw with bold words shouting at us; incompetence, mismanagement, lack of commitment, status quo, corruption and many others to name in the list.
The missing piece to solve the puzzle only remains is a selfless, committed and undaunted democratic government which seems a mirage for now.