Disregarding the fundamental concerns
By Muzhar Javed Malik
Monday, June 18,2007
Some people say, “Budget is a jugglery of figures”. Surely, a cynical comment! Budget is a well thought-out and comprehensive plan of what the government will spend for its various programmes in the year ahead and how it expects to raise money to pay for them. It is a very focused exercise that necessitates broad vision to diversify sphere of influence, resolute will to set ambitious targets, unflinching commitment to achieve set goals.
In the evaluation of budget, the yardstick used to gauge the strength is of prime importance. Basically, the tone and tenor of budget is tested with the financial standing of the regime, public expectations, grievances of all the stakeholders and challenges confronting the country.
Domestically, Pakistan is facing the daunting task to mitigate the miseries and sufferings of the poor by addressing their real concerns of widespread unemployment, abject poverty and rising inflation. Government has the obligation to provide proper health, sanitation, clean drinking water and housing facilities to all in general and lower and middle class in particular. The provision of quality education is also the prime responsibility of government not only for the sake of promoting literacy but also for the economic survival in this highly competitive world. What has been done to address the problem of unemployment is induction of internees in government departments.
The internship programme initiated by the government is a welcome step but faulty one and may not yield the required results. The very purpose of the said programme is to equip the young graduates with state of the art training and skills. Will it be possible in public sector organisations where the quality of incumbent manpower and other infrastructure is always questionable? The government should make it practical and fruitful through public-private partnership. The government should induct these internees in private organisations where diversity, professionalism and state of the art facilities are available at the same place and pay the stipend from the national kitty. In this way two birds will be killed with one stone. On one hand, quality training will be made available and on the other hand, private sector will also benefit. Above all, the candidates proving their worth during training would be able to pave the way for permanent job that is impossible in public sector. Secondly, the government intended to create thousands of new jobs in different industries. That seems more like a hollow promise because no mechanism has been announced to make it possible. For eradicating rampant poverty, no worthwhile measures have been proposed. Provision of subsidy on essential items through Utility Stores Corporation will not work because the Utility Stores mechanism has not been a remarkable success in our case primarily for two reasons. One the USCs network is very limited and is not enough to cater to the needs of 73 percent below $2 population. Secondly, no check and balance mechanism is practically in place to address the issue of over-charging and other problems facing the poor at Utility Stores. Raise in pay is nominal considering the current trend of Consumer Price Index (CPI) and especially Sensitive Price Index (SPI) and it will hardly make any difference to the low-grade employees. The increase in minimum wages of unskilled workers of private sector becomes irrelevant and seems distant dream considering the implementation gap and resistance from the corporate elites. These poverty related measures seem cosmetic in a society where people are forced to sell their organs and fathers are selling their children to make both ends meet.
For education and health, allocation is stagnant in terms of GDP ratio. In spite of IFI’s strong recommendations and government’s repeated assertions of investing more in education, national, institutional and international obligation has not been fulfilled. In spite of the fact that the current report on Millennium Development Goals illustrates that Pakistan lags behind in 12 indicators especially in education and health related, but no special attention has been paid.
Another challenge facing the country is sustainability of the current trend of economic growth that seems unrealisable until the power and energy crisis is resolved for which government has not suggested immediate steps. Government has also not put forward some pragmatic and practical steps to control the twin deficits of trade and current account.
Balance between current and development expenditures is horrible and must be rationalised. Development expenditures are insufficient considering the infrastructure development requirement to sustain the trend of GDP growth in general and foreign investment in particular. Secondly, only allocation of funds is not important but more important is utilisation of funds that must be taken care of, as it happened in case of development budget of 2006-07 of which two-third remained un-utilised and no action has been taken. The government must address the implementation and spending gap concerns. Government must introduce some check and balance mechanism to ensure the raising of funds and more importantly utilisation of allocated amount of money in particular head.
The government claims of breaking the begging bowl seem false when external debt has exceeded $38 billion, internal debt amounts to Rs2500 billion. Under the circumstances, every new-born baby will owe Rs2900 and government has allocated Rs641 billion to debt servicing from budget. Defence is consuming Rs916875 billion that gives the impression of the country being the “security state”. Defence budget is not Rs275 billion but it must include the amount to be paid to the retired army-men in form of pension that has been included in non-defence budget.
It is pertinent to note that the budget in question may not be as pathetic as the public’s disappointment. But the frustration of the public as a whole lies at the heart of primarily two obvious reasons, one, the current regime has been harping the mantra of its affluence from day one and always propagates the overflow of money from the national kitty and believes in charity to other nations. And two, in the election year, politically charged environment, considering the pain of the poor, public was expecting a special bailout package from the government which the incumbent regime failed to offer.
Surely the budget cannot appease all the segments of the society or all the stakeholders. But it must be populist in character, pro-corporate in substance and more relevant for the common man and for this political will and commitment is top pre-requisite which like others, this regime too lacks.
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/jun2007-w...06-2007/p5.htm