Daily Times

The PML-N’s decision to form the government as a leading party of the PDM was ill-conceived. What was the pressing need for Mian Shahbaz Sharif to take the oath of the prime minister’s office and make financial decisions, which had to be most unpopular among the public? An interim government consisting of men with financial expertise, including some bureaucrats could have been put in place to take critical financial decisions and lose nothing in return; politicians have much to suffer in popularity when making such decisions.

The people at large with a literacy rate as low as ours but having votes in their pockets don’t understand the intricacies of acquiring foreign loans to run the government. They aren’t aware of the compulsions of why the government borrows foreign loans, how the lending agencies lay down stringent conditions for granting the loans and who faces the wrath at the public end when those conditions are met. When prices of petrol, gas and electricity, which are the basic utilities jump up, the lower middle class and those living below the poverty line suffer the most. Why were Miftah Ismail and now Ishaq Dar blamed for inflation and high prices? Because they were appointed to perform as government representatives to the loaning agencies and act as an interface with the public. Both had a tough job at hand – break the unpleasant news of the escalation in prices of basic utilities.

When the vote of no-confidence was cast against the PTI government, Imran Khan’s popularity had considerably gone down because of his party’s poor governance. After nearly four years in power, there’s nothing to show for any major achievement by the PTI government on the ground. The less said about the LRBT, the better. But as a parting shot, when the PTI government was ultimately on its way out, Khan decided to lower the price of fuel against IMF recommendations. He wanted the new government to earn public anger and suffer vote loss.

The government surviving on borrowed money must make every effort not to overburden the exchequer.

Now Imran Khan won six seats out of the seven he contested. Had he appointed some other candidates for these seats in his place, could they have won six out of seven seats is another question to consider. Let’s assume his party had not been voted out of power and completed its five years, could the party have won the next general elections based on its governance and delivery? Common sense suggests a big No, if the performance of his party had anything to show for during the years in power.

Undoubtedly, PDM’s political standing, especially its leading party, PML-N, is waning despite maintaining a large number of ministers, advisers and the so-called SAPMs. The government surviving on borrowed money must make every effort not to overburden the exchequer. The state of the national economy is gloomy, if not plummeting. Depending on IMF loans and rescheduling its previous loans year after year is no honourable way for a nation to survive. As reported, our present forex reserves held by the State Bank are $7.6 billion, but this is no reason for consolation, as $2.3 billion are credited by China, $3 billion deposited by Saudi Arabia and $1.2 from the IMF. The remaining was borrowed from commercial banks. Had the national economy been performing well, the political situation wouldn’t have looked so dismal. When the mid-level bureaucrats in districts have at least two new cars, one for the sahib and the other for the family with chauffeurs, servants and cooks, free petrol and telephones, it only shows the nation is still under colonial rule.

The crux of the matter is that our minuscule economy simply cannot afford to maintain a huge bureaucracy. The UK-based columnist Owen Jones explained the concept of establishment in his book “The Establishment And How They Get Away With It.” While in Pakistan, establishment mostly refers to the army, in Jones’s view, it comprises top judges, generals and senior bureaucrats.

It’s the most appropriate stage when the national institutional structure is messed up; the establishment that Jones suggests joins heads to discuss what really bedevils this country and what remedial measures to take to control the situation. In the pure national interest, the three sectors mentioned in Jones’s establishment may look into their volume, especially the multiplying bureaucracy, its salaries, benefits and privileges. Small government rules best is the bottom line.

The writer is a Lahore-based columnist and can be reached at pinecity @gmail.com