Daily Times Editorial Dec 27, 2013

Government’s drift Even the well wishers of the PML-N government are having an increasingly hard time defending its performance in office during the last six months. Given Pakistan’s dire situation as far as terrorism, law and order and the economy are concerned, the incoming government initially enjoyed a great deal of goodwill based on the perception that a ‘business-friendly’ government may prove more adept at turning the economy round at the very least. However, six months down the road, that hope appears to be dwindling. It should not come as a surprise then that opposition leaders are starting to speak out on the handling of the economy in particular, and the country’s affairs in general. Leader of the Opposition and a PPP leader Syed Khursheed Shah felt compelled to warn the government on Wednesday that they had better get a grip and allay the sense of drift that seems to permeate the affairs of the government. Khursheed was nevertheless constrained, perhaps in recognition of the serious difficulties the country is in, to offer another three months to the government to put its house in order, otherwise the opposition would be compelled, he said, to devise a new strategy. Without referring to the ‘old’ strategy of the opposition, it can be surmised that the warning of a ‘new’ one emanates from two factors. One, the government’s failure to reduce inflation (despite the claims of the Punjab PML-N government regarding foodstuffs), eliminate load shedding (which has returned with a vengeance because of the diversion of gas from the power sector to textiles to take full advantage of the recently granted GSP Plus access to EU markets), or uplift the economy. Fortunately, the Leader of the Opposition, as behoves a senior and responsible parliamentarian, rejected taking these issues to the street (a la Imran Khan) and argued for parliament as the proper forum to resolve these problems. However, while criticizing Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar’s ‘performance’ in parliament, particularly the festering sore of the use of the word ‘tamasha’ (drama) to describe the opposition’s stance on verifying votes in four constituencies, he said half the ministers do not come to the National Assembly (following no doubt their prime minister’s example) and the minister was talking about the TA/DA allowances parliamentarians get for attendance. He went on to take a dig at the prime minister by arguing that he had kept so many crucial ministries to himself that he had no time to come to parliament. Another voice that has been added to the concerns about the government’s performance is that of PML-Q leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain. He is so alarmed that he has come out with the ‘original’ suggestion of an All Parties Conference (APC) on the economy, just as was held over national security. The example he gave runs against Chaudhry Shujaat’s wishes as the APC on the approach towards terrorism produced nothing but more confusion and paralysis. Going by that track record, the suggestion of an APC on the economy fails to inspire confidence. Whether one agrees wholly or partly with Khursheed and Shujaat or not, the fact remains that they have put their finger on a critical aspect of the government’s manner of tackling things. The inescapable sense of policy drift has left even government supporters frustrated. Inflation is a direct consequence of supply and demand factors, implying only a boost to production can restore some balance between the two. Production increases require investment (not to be had for love or money at present), energy (increasingly in short supply again) and an enabling environment for entrepreneurship (the Youth Loan scheme has run into trouble at the very outset and the bureaucracy still wields extraordinary power to frustrate businessmen). While Khursheed lauded the reversal of the decline of the rupee vis-à-vis the dollar and hoped for further improvement in this regard, the currency’s value is tied in inextricable bonds with business confidence (the state of which is reflected in the flight of capital from the country) and the state of the country’s external obligations. Whether domestic or external factors are considered, one irreducible truth is undeniable: without tackling terrorism (and its concomitant bad law and order), there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell the economy can recover, let alone flourish. If there is one key to the whole mess the country is in, it is this. But unfortunately, this is an area where confusion and drift reign supreme, refurbished by the confusion the APC produced on peace with the terrorists through talks. Now we neither have ‘talks’, nor concerted action to root out terrorism. In this policy impasse, how can the economy or any other national matter be expected to yield improvement? The government must go back to the drawing board in its own interest and at least be seen to be tackling the country’s problems, otherwise the present perception of drift could hurt it badly in the eyes of the electorate.