The word change has become a cliché in Pakistan. Pakistanis have been waiting for a change for a long time. However, every party promised a change but when they attained government none delivered in real sense.
None of these governments have ever brought long term and permanent change. Unfortunately, ad-hocism has always prevailed.
Pakistan needs a holistic change in concrete terms.
Real change must be made in the political structure and economic system of the country.
For that Pakistan needs a leader, not just politicians.
Political Structure Change:
The government size of Pakistan is simply humongous. It is costing too much. The cost of running the government is about 10% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Pakistan.
This government structure is simply not delivering. It is not providing proper governance.
There is no uniformity as far delivering of public service to every Pakistani.
Political parties have made amendments to the constitution as per their own desire so they can have political control over the regions they want to have more influence on. This is irrespective of the fact that they want to deliver in those regions or not.
The government of Pakistan must be made smaller with a uniform structure throughout the country.
This will save billions of rupees to run the government, making it more efficient, deliver better governance, minimize the corruption, stop the blame game, eliminate regional have-not feelings, deliver uniform and equal public service to every citizen of Pakistan wherever he/she resides from Gwadar to Gilgit-Baltistan and Ther to Chaman.
Billions of rupees and a great deal of time spent on political quarreling and politically related legal issues will be saved. This money will be spent on public service and betterment programs.
With this new structure, the government will be able to render full concentration to resolve issues of the public.
This will help bring back the true essence of democracy.
The writer of this article who is the Chairman of Pakistan Tehreke-e-Nizam, has proposed a simple government structure for Pakistan. This structure is based on the Presidential system with the devolution of provinces into divisional administrative units where Administrators be appointed by the President of his own liking, this to ensure that there is no political quarreling.
As per government statistics Pakistan has about 6.2% jobless rate. This is not even close to the reality. There are millions who have become desperate and stopped looking for jobs thus they are not counted in this number
A hierarchical structure with central government branches in each division, district, and tehsil to ensure a proper and uniform level of provision of services like education, health, the food at reasonable rates and ensure job opportunities, etc. at the root level. While Divisional level governments to provide localized public service such as cleanliness, local policing, etc. Thus the central government and divisional governments’ functions and responsibilities will not overlap. And they will work in cohesion.
A single level central government, where the public knows who is responsible to get their issues resolved. No one will be able to transfer blame to one another in different levels like from city government to the provincial government or to the Federal government as the situation is currently prevailing.
Central level representatives will be responsible for legislation at the center and divisional level representatives will be responsible for their respective divisional legislation.
The representatives at both central and divisional level House of Representatives will ensure public rights are being delivered properly. These houses will also ensure proper checks & balances of position holders such as the President, Divisional Administrators, Ministers, and bureaucrats.
A new generation of politicians will spring up who will not have a personal but rather deep interest to serve.
Economic System Change:
We Pakistanis tend to rejoice when we hear Moody’s or other financial institutions raise the outlook of Pakistani economy. However we forget that Moody’s only look at the outlook but not the actual current picture of an economy. They have done this negative to positive and positive to negative reversals for Pakistani economy many times. Moody’s is not a standard to gauge the wellness of economy of a country. It only gives an indication for potential investors where it is heading in a short term.
Economic indices current Pakistani government is trying to propagate may be positive, however, they unfortunately do not reflect the real situation.
Stock exchange which is showing positivity is based on shear speculation; not based on real progressive economy. Stock exchange is never a good indicator of good economy. This has happened before, stock market reached very high level. But there are no concrete steps those have been taken those will keep the market persistently high or continue to increase. The writer forecast a correction of the market soon.
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) which government has reported to have taken place, meager USD1-2Bill, that is not because of certain good economic steps taken but because of high interest rates attraction in Pakistan.
It is being said that trade deficit has been reduced. This is because imports have been reduced and some exports have increased.
The reduction of imports is not a good sign in present circumstances. The reason behind reduced imports is increased interest rates. High rates makes things less affordable. Also due to increased interest rates businesses tend to invest less which cause higher joblessness, thus reduced demand of imported goods. On the other hand only one or two heavily subsidized industries have been able to increase exports. This increase also is due to drastically reduced Pak Rupee-US Dollar exchange rate.
Joblessness in auto industry has increased by almost 50% due to decreased demand of domestically produced automotive. About 1,200,000 jobs have been lost overall.
As per government statistics Pakistan has about 6.2% jobless rate. This is not even close to the reality. There are millions who have become desperate and stopped looking for jobs thus they are not counted in this number.
Inflation is in double figures. As per government statistics inflation rate is close to 13% inflation, the highest in nine years. However, in reality inflation is in range of 20 to 30% if you talk to commoners.
As per certain gauge of poverty, in Pakistan 40% of the people are below poverty line.
There are three economic sectors in Pakistan; 62% service industry 19% manufacturing and 20% agriculture. Manufacturing and agriculture has gone down considerably. Earning of foreign exchange is mostly done by export of manufactured goods and agriculture products, however nothing much is being done to enhance and develop these two sectors.
Farmers themselves are disheartened by the current state of agriculture.
Presently Pakistan is expected to have a growth rate of about 2.5% while a developing country like Pakistan needs to grow by at least 8 to 10% annually.
It is said that Pakistanis are one of the lowest tax paying nation. That is true if we talk about direct taxes. However, if we talk about indirect taxes, Pakistanis pay about 400Billion which is mostly indirect taxes. Because those are easier to collect like on petrol/diesel, mobile card, on food items etc.
There are redundant taxes. Tax is being paid on top of paid tax. If an item is sold for Rs.100 + Rs.10Tax = Rs.110. Then the reseller will charge consumer tax on top of Rs.110.
There are estimated three crore families in Pakistan. Therefore each individual adult and child, on the average pays about Rs.125,000 annually. Government cannot collect more from these poor. That is not the solution.
(To be continued)
The writer is a Political Economist