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Return of the Undertakers
Caretaker PM Moeen Qureshi is on his annual “yatra” to Pakistan. On Friday last he spoke on “Pakistan and its economy in the global context” to a gathering in Karachi organized by “The Reformers”, the brainchild of one of the Caretaker Ministers of 1993, Mr Nisar Memon, former long-term Chief of IBM in Pakistan. This elite audience consisting of businessmen, technocrats, intellectuals, bureaucrats etc was carefully selected to get the maximum mileage from Moeen Qureshi’s thoughts to the Pakistan populace. His message of “doom and gloom” was well articulated, he spoke about the eminent collapse of Pakistan’s economy. Our man who lives in Washington (but will agree to live here either as President or PM) has been saying the same thing for some years now, and the inference is that it was only because of his three months Caretaking in 1993 that Pakistan’s economy has managed to survive this long. Moeen Qureshi pontificated a few “priorities” for the military administration, viz (1) long-term loans from world financial institutions at low interest rates (2) restoring investors confidence (3) law and order situation to be improved (4) administration to be strengthened and (5) a long-term poverty alleviation programme to be structured with help of IMF and World Bank. Well, I have news for Mr Moeen Qureshi, with some adjustment to substance and priority, and with all due respects, isn’t that what the military regime has been trying to do for the past year? And Shaukat Aziz as Finance Minister has done a reasonable job in stabilizing the economy, we may default on our debts but not for any fault of Shaukat. Moreover, the heavens will not fall in case of Pakistan default even though there may be wailing in the corridors of the IMF and the World Bank because of the deviation from their prepared script. As much as I have read history and about economies, one cannot come across a single instance where a nation that can feed itself has collapsed economically. Moreover, any child in Pakistan knows that we spend too much on defence, that same child also knows that even that is not enough (by far) to retain parity with the enormous increases in defence spending that India is presently engaged in. What Moeen Qureshi is asking us to do in sophisticated language is to roll over and play dead. He may be a super-salesman for “signing of the CTBT crowd”, disarming and playing second fiddle to India will take some selling to Pakistanis, especially those who live in Pakistan.
Shaukat Proposes. Who Disposes?
Some people have their destinies written in the wind, ephemeral in character this disappears like chaff in the face of any crisis. And in any case the wind cannot read. This may or may not be so for Shaukat Aziz, Finance Minister-in-waiting for almost every government in the last decade. With full-time cover of a military regime Shaukat finally got his chance to define how he would govern the economic health of the nation and look after the well-being of every individual citizen, if not till Kingdom Come, maybe for the next three years, or at least for the next year. As “Mission Impossible(s)” go, Tom Cruise had it much easier, and then he had distractions of the other kind, the kind that is anathema to the Ulema who hold Pakistan hostage intermittently. Abandoning the “best dressed list” for the standard bureaucratic white shalwar-kameez, black waist coat outfit was out of character but symbolic. Whatever magnificent plans Shaukat may have had for Pakistan when in faraway land, like the Romans do when on Pakistani soil you do exactly as the bureaucrats want you to do. And when you have the fudgers-in-chief of the last 4 regimes surrounding you, one hardly has any choice.
The abolition of the wealth tax was absolutely brilliant, however this was “a Pindi-dictated” initiative not a Shaukat Aziz one. Wealth tax has been the subject of misuse of discretionary powers by the CBR personnel and the abolition of it must have left CBR shell-shocked (maybe of the self-propelled kind). He came up roses in consolidating of Provincial taxes from 30 to 9. If you own a business you would know how different Departments can drive you crazy taking full advantage of levying some unknown tax, harassing and intimidating you with penalties, incarceration, etc till you cough up. However CBR had the last laugh, importers will now be held to blackmail for “under-invoicing” at the discretion of the Principal Appraiser (PA), the threat of confiscation by Customs Collectors (who will never dare disagree with the PA’s observations) will be very real.
Budgeting Pakistan, Mission Impossible
Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz proposed the Federal Budget for the year 2000-2001 on TV and radio on Saturday June 17, 2000. As any former Finance Minister of Pakistan will tell you, Tom Cruise has it much easier in the two “Mission Impossible” movies he has starred in, moreover Tom Cruise has distractions of the third kind. PML(N) Senator Sartaj Aziz had a perennial smile when presenting the Federal Budget, the smile of a magician about to pull a rabbit out of a hat. In keeping with the present environment, Shaukat was far more grim, and looking uncomfortable in the trademark Pakistani bureaucrat white shalwar-kameez with black waistcoat outfit. Nevertheless the military regime’s civilian Finance Minister was optimistic in outlining his plans despite the fact that with the institutions of governance in the state of disrepair they are in, it is virtually a “mission impossible”. Shaukat in fact pulled a number of rabbits out of his hat, only time will tell whether the hat was deep enough to hold the rabbits and whether the rabbits were real and not illusions.