Daily Times

“God helps those who help themselves,” a phrase that, according to Wikipedia, has its origins in ancient Greece, more than 2,000 years ago. Any phrase that manages to survive that long and for all intent and purposes is expected to survive another 2,000 years most definitely must be true.

The assumption that the phrase, “Be Pakistani, buy Pakistani”, which seems to have disappeared from the political as well as journalism landscape is also an offshoot of the aforementioned self-help phrase cannot be far off the mark. Buying Pakistani ensures national self-sustainability and enriches the economy. With this preamble, the current obsessive and passionate reliance on foreigners, in the name of the consumer’s birthright to choose, is rather perplexing.

Unfortunately, Google was not helpful in tracing the origins or the author of the brilliant insight on buying Pakistani; whoever it was needs to be credited for the single most strategically important economic advice the nation ever got since independence. The causes behind a complete blackout of the phrase can only be conspiratorial in nature; that the entire electronic media as well as the political elite do not even provide lip service to the phrase is even more disturbing. And how bad are things?

There is a painful realisation that the machine on which this article is being typed is imported as is the phone and the printer left and right of it. After decades, the nation has remained incapable of even manufacturing these gadgets indigenously. Any idea how much foreign currency is spent on importing mobile phones so that the populace can indulge in its wasteful passion for talking? Even the brands publicised as Pakistani are manufactured in China. The arguments against providing protection to local manufacturing initiatives are massively erroneous.

On the other hand, what happened in the automobile sector? A lot of foreign brands were allowed to set up automobile assembly plants with an understanding to transfer technology through a deletion process. Breaking news: the nation, after decades, continues to drive around in locally assembled imported cars. In fact, of late, somebody came up with a brilliant money making brainwave — why go through all the hassle of importing spare parts and then assembling cars? Simply import cars and broaden the elitist consumer’s horizon to choose. Obviously, this strategy has the dual purpose of also pleasing the lenders by demonstrating the nation’s commitment to free markets. So what if foreign exchange reserves get dissipated a bit? The nation can always borrow more. The problem is not providing protection to the domestic automobile industry; the fault lies in inadequate monitoring of the deletion process at the regulatory level.

And let us not forget that these flashing gas guzzlers run on imported fuel. Obviously, if the nation is not blessed with oil reserves, import is the only option. However, considering the importance of fuel in driving the economy and more importantly in defending the national borders, efforts to explore and develop oilfields on a war footing to achieve a reasonable level of self-reliance should be a priority. Contrarily, the import bill continues to rise year on year with oil being the biggest culprit responsible for an unmanageable trade deficit.

Oil, or hydrocarbons, is now a critical raw material for generating electricity. Being technically ignorant, reliance can only be placed on hearsay that there exist numerous locations for generating hydel electricity up north. If that is true, then the continuing procrastination by the upper most echelons of power is rather confusing; maybe there is something wrong with the quality of water — it might not contain the right quantity and quality of electricity to bother with hydel projects.

The buck does not stop there; the nation is also afflicted by dam allergy and, as there is no elixir for the pollen allergy epidemic in Islamabad, there appears to be none for the dam allergy. And while the political faceoff gets worse, the nation, as experts continue to point out, will soon be importing drinking water. But hang on, that milestone has already been achieved. Every sip of bottled water ensures that a foreign investor somewhere makes profits. Pakistan’s commitment to globalisation is undeniable.

Nonetheless, there are short term initiatives to curb rising power generation costs, mostly through migration to power generation plants that run on comparatively cheaper coal and gas. Irrespective of why long term initiatives of hydel generation continue to remain on the backburner, guess who is erecting and installing these new plants? Nope, there were no brownie points for guessing right!

A few years ago, perhaps still friendly Chinese companies were the cheapest option for constructing large scale infrastructure projects in Pakistan, and considering the limited development budgets available at the government’s disposal, perhaps the only option. The obvious compromise is quality and efficiency. Try recalling a project that was completed by a Chinese contractor on time and to go out on a limb, within budget. Nonetheless, while the argument that Pakistan does not have the competence to carry out such complex projects might carry weight, what exactly has been done to improve upon the situation over the past many decades?

While the following assertion is once again based on limited knowledge, apparently no Pakistani company still has the capacity to undertake large scale construction projects, such as dams, airports and power stations. And as far as building roads is concerned, even the Turks seem to have jumped in on the bandwagon. Rumour has it that no Pakistani company has the competence to even maintain large scale logistics projects. The causes behind the continuing lethargy of domestic construction enterprises to gain requisite know how need to be identified, and more importantly addressed. Until such time, the populace will continue to drive imported cars run by imported fuels on imported roads, and pay through the teeth for such basic necessities.

Dear readers, unfortunately, due to limited space, which normally results in the highly undesirable consequence of the editor cramping paragraphs, this article cannot be concluded in one go. So, same newspaper and same day and perhaps same time next week, InshAllah. In the meanwhile, sit back and consider which tangible or intangible items of daily use actually and realistically originated in Pakistan.

Be Pakistani, buy globally; at least until the money runs out or the lenders stop lending.

The writer is a chartered accountant based in Islamabad. He can be reached at syed.bakhtiyarkazmi@gmail.com

and on twitter @leaccountant