Daily Times

Credit where credit’s due. It must have taken extraordinary courage for Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif to sit on a World Economic Forum panel and openly admit to the shortcomings of his own government.

As he exclaimed “putting things in order is easiser said than done,” and proceeded to list down a myriad of challenges engulfing Pakistan in an attempt to make a case in his defence (the horrors of the past two years do not befit the internationally-renowned Shahbaz Speed), his office could have offered a cent or two about the implications of these cold, hard reflections on the investor sentiment.

Following his predecessors to the dot, one of the most talked-about cornerstones of his administration remains the emphasis on courting foreign investment. With pledges sought from Middle Eastern economies and dust blown off familial ties to ensure a new lifeline in a dollar-starved treasury, Mr Sharif seeks to personally monitor key projects, warning an already-wary bureaucracy against its trademark red tape. Now all this appears pristine on paper.

Having successfully navigated the Chinese collaborations during his stint as chief minister of Punjab, he could be expected to once again rise to the occasion and live up to the wild expectations. But no buzzwords or hollow platitudes carry the magic to erase skeletons from the last time he had sat in the same chair and miserably failed in bringing any relief whatsoever to the masses. Two years is more than enough for any administrator–let alone someone with his experience–to at least take the wraps off a formidable roadmap to improvement if not prosperity. Perhaps, somewhere, deep deep down in his heart, an introspective Mr Sharif knows well all that he missed.

But considering a palpable change in his assertive style of governance, one might not be entirely wrong in pinning hopes on the coming year. A string of lost opportunities might enthuse this government with a determination to not let anything else fall through the cracks. *